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Title:

Wheelchair Securement for Urban Transit Vehicles: It’s Time to Address the Other Side of the Problem

Accession Number:

01033504

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

Travel is an integral part of life in today’s society and wheelchair securement is an essential part of safe travel. Advances in wheelchair securement are facing a challenge in that different types of securement are appropriate for different types of transportation but it’s impractical to expect any given wheelchair to work with all of them. The signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act spurred the development and implementation of accessible transportation. This included technologies for the securement of wheelchairs in buses, paratransit vehicles, and personal vehicles. Although several types of securement systems were developed early on, belt-type systems were almost universally adopted because of their low cost and flexibility. Standards have been developed for belt-type securement and they are being worked on for both docking and rear facing securement as well. The dilemma is that each of these systems requires different features for the wheelchair to be secured: belt-systems require one type of attachment bracket, transit docking another, personal van docking yet another, and rear facing requires none. Rather than trying to standardize the securement industry, wheelchairs should be built to accommodate various securement systems by using a system analogous to that used for trailer hitches on automobiles. Incentives should be developed so that manufacturers will incorporate attachment points in their products for either a factory or an aftermarket interface receiver. On installation of the receiver, the user could then easily change between a bracket for belts, an interface for their personal van, or any other type of securement system to be used.

Monograph Accession #:

01020180

Report/Paper Numbers:

06-0893

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Zaworski, Joseph Robert
Hunter-Zaworski, Katharine M

Pagination:

15p

Publication Date:

2006

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2006-1-22 to 2006-1-26
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

CD-ROM

Features:

Figures (9) ; References (8)

Subject Areas:

Highways; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2006 Paper #06-0893

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Mar 3 2006 10:30AM