Coach and bus has done lots to improve accessibility. An argument exists that more could be delivered at the roadside with partners, but the position compared to when work began during the early-1990s is vastly better.
Kinchbus is an operator to go further and factor neurodiversity into how new bus fleets are specified.
Neurodivergent people can find shared mobility difficult. Whether they are more likely to use such services is less conclusive, and the prospect that vehicle-related factors are all that is required to make a difference is remote.
Nevertheless, a partnership approach in the Loughborough project has illustrated that drawing up an appropriate interior is possible. Someone involved notes how the finished product goes against everything the operator has done before.
That is a striking point, and perhaps illustrates how neurodiversity has gone under the radar for coach and bus thus far. Learnings from the Kinchbus work could also give rise to a view that the sector has seen previous outputs that will tick no boxes in that field.
Some interventions relate to items like interior colours, which are hardly expensive to adjust in the overall cost envelope of a new vehicle, particularly when commercial benefits are considered.
Long-seated efforts on disability-friendly vehicle designs came as coach and bus was striving to broaden its customer base in other ways, be that via marketing efforts, new ideas, or redesigned tourism programmes.
Is it at risk of overlooking neurodivergence among its customers? No. Lessons are quick to spread, and wider society pays more attention than before.
