The purpose of these Guidelines is to assist and support maritime passenger transport operators in Ireland to make their services more accessible to passengers with reduced mobility. The primary intended audience for this document consists of the owners, operators, management, crew and staff of:
The Guidelines in this document provide advice and information on best practice. They are intended to help maritime passenger transport operators provide comprehensive and readily usable services to passengers with reduced mobility.
A person with reduced mobility is someone whose access to traditionally constructed transport vehicles is limited because of physical, sensory, learning or cognitive difficulties (whether permanent or temporary). Other people who come into this category are those whose access is limited because they are elderly or because they are travelling with small children, or have a lot of luggage or shopping bags. The terms 'passenger with reduced mobility' and 'person with reduced mobility' are used throughout this document to refer to all such people.
This document is structured in two parts.
Part One, Background Information (chapters 1-3) explains why we need to improve accessibility, describes the current barriers to accessibility and sets out the legal context of the supporting framework.
Everybody interested in accessibility of maritime passenger transport should read Part One.
Part Two, Guidelines (chapters 4-9), has individual chapters that present guidelines for different parts of the maritime passenger transport business, as follows:
Readers may choose to focus on the relevant sections of Part Two, depending on their role and responsibilities. The main recommendations are summarised at the end of each chapter. Each of the chapters also contains a 'Where to go next' section that provides information and sources of more specific and detailed guidance that can be used.
The document also contains a number of appendices, one of which is a List of Useful Contacts (see Appendix 1) that includes contact details for most of the national disability representative organisations.