Wheel Newbie - Coach Travel

byIanCampbell

324 followers

10 years ago

WHEEL NEWBIE – TRAVEL BY WHEELCHAIR IN A NATIONAL EXPRESS COACH

This post concerns travelling by wheelchair on National Express Coach services in the United Kingdom.

The National Express Company provides an integrated coach service throughout most of the United Kingdom. The main hub of the network of routes that the company serves is at London’s Victoria Coach station in the heart of the city and only a short distance from Victoria Railway Station and Buckingham Palace. If you are in the southern half of the country and wish to travel from North to South or East to West your journey will probably involve a change of coaches in the Victoria Coach Station.

Disabled travellers in wheelchairs are catered for in two ways…either as ‘able bodied’ who can mount the steps into the coach and who can take their coach seats accordingly and those who travel in their wheelchair which involves the wheelchair and its incumbent being raised by a lifting platform to the floor level of the coach and then having the wheelchair and passenger seat-belted and fastened into the front of the coach. In order to do this, the two front seats on the left-hand side of the coach are removed to make space for the wheelchair. There is a routine for this and I will take you through it as best I can.

On my outward journey from Dover to Liverpool I travelled as a normal passenger, the only concession being that as I had purchased a ‘disabled person’s’ ticket I had the use of a seat behind the coach driver with plenty of room. On this trip, I made inquiries as to how the system operated with someone who was confined to a wheelchair and this is what I discovered.

After purchasing your coach ticket you need to telephone the Disabled Assistance Department on:- 03717 818181

You will be given a set of options and currently you need to select Option #3

Explain that you are wheelchair bound and that you have booked your tickets for travel from A to B. YOU MUST ADVISE THEM AT LEAST 36 HOURS BEFORE YOUR JOURNEY STARTS.

You will then be asked for the ticket reservation number (printed on the ticket).

Next, the details of your wheelchair:-

The make and Model of your wheelchair.

The overall width of your wheelchair.

The overall length of your wheelchair.

National Express need the make and model of your wheelchair to check against their list of wheelchairs that have been safety tested to their Insurers’ standards. If you do not have this or cannot get this information then you will not be travelling in your wheelchair on board the coach.

The maximum length of your wheelchair must be less than 130cm (51”) and the maximum width must be less than 70cm (27.5”).

If your wheelchair does meet these requirements then check in to the Disability Waiting Room in the Departure side of the coach station and they will take you to your coach at the appropriate time and make sure the coach driver gets you loaded appropriately.

If your wheelchair does not meet these requirements, follow the same check-in procedure and you will be taken to the coach and helped aboard but your wheelchair will be folded and stowed in the luggage hold.

I will let you know how the trip worked out in a few days’ time.

P.S. The reason for the 36 hour prior to travel notification is because the seat removal operation has to be done by mechanics in the garage. It is not something done ‘at the drop of a hat’ by the driver.

P.P.SEach coach can only accept one wheelchair in the space of the front seats so two or more wheelchair bound people cannot be transported in the same coach in their wheelchairs.