Upcoming Hyderabad Metro Rail is not just for the young and the agile, with the facilities being created going to aid the old and the differently-abled too. Whether they are wheel-chair bound, visually or hearing impaired, or even those with speech or cognitive disability, they can all move around on the elevated mass transit system.
“We have considered the needs of the disabled right from the design stage itself at the ground level, entry/exits, escalators, lifts, fare gates, ticket vending machines, tiling on the platform or the signages for their convenience,” said HMR MD N.V.S. Reddy on Thursday.
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L&TMRH, the concessionnaire building the project, has provided a barrier-free environment beginning from the ramp at the road level to facilitate wheelchairs up to the lifts. For easy manoeuvrability and accommodation of wheelchairs, spacious lifts are being provided with hand rails inside.
Lift operating buttons will have information in Braille script at all levels of the station, a tactile strip is being provided from the street level till the edge of the platform to guide the visually impaired in navigating their way. With the train floor and platform gap not much, wheelchair bound passengers will not encounter any problem getting into the train.
So do the visually impaired, he explained.
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Wheelchairs can be locked to a special “grab hold” in the train in the designated space. Every station will have special toilet with grab bars and supports to help the physically challenged. Automatic fare collection gates are made wide and ticket vending machines are designed to help the speech impaired.
Signages with images and high contrast levels would aid the partially visually impaired, those with cognitive disabilities and the illiterate too for easy access of different areas of the station and the trains.
Mr. Reddy also informed that announcements would be made in three languages of English, Telugu and Urdu inside the metro rail during transit, about the arrival station, on which side of the platform the door will open and safety aspects.