Research On Travel Equity And Barrier-free Facility Optimization From The Perspective Of People With Visual Impairment

In the new era,what we now face is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.Thus,meeting the travel needs of people with visual impairment has become an inevitable requirement for the construction of the harmonious society and the beautiful China.The large population of people with visual impairment in our country,and complex road traffic environment pose a great challenge to meet the travel needs of people with visual impairment and realize the travel equality.At the same time,the uncoordinated and insufficient phenomenon also exists in the construction of barrier-free facilities.The design and construction of barrier-free facilities do not meet the standards,the maintenance and management of barrier-free facilities are absent,and barrier-free facilities at key nodes are absent,which seriously affect the travel rights of people with visual impairment.This paper studies the travel exclusion phenomenon,the way to achieve travel equality and the optimization strategy of barrier-free facilities from the perspective of people with visual impairment,so as to provide theoretical support and application suggestions for the construction of barrier-free facilities in China and the realization of travel equality for people with visual impairment.In this study,the semi-structured interview and questionnaire survey were used to quantitatively analyze the travel characteristics of people with visual impairment as well as the use situation of barrier-free facilities.Based on the travel characteristics,travel exclusion phenomenon of people with visual impairment and the ways to achieve travel equality were analyzed.The results show that the travel frequency and travel distance of people with visual impairment are far less than other physiological vulnerable groups.The travel exclusion phenomenon is manifested in time,space and safety dimensions.The realization of travel equality can be divided into optimizing the construction and management of barrier-free facilities,strengthening the coverage of orientation training and propaganda.Secondly,to put forward corresponding proposals for barrier-free facilities system optimization,this study built the conceptual model of travel equality and the effectiveness of the barrier-free facilities system.Using structural equation model to quantitative analyze the interactive relationship of travel equality,barrier-free facilities overall effectiveness,touch auxiliary system effectiveness,hearing auxiliary system effectiveness and visual auxiliary system effectiveness.The results show that improving the effectiveness of the barrier-free facilities can positively affect travel equality,increasing the effectiveness of the touch auxiliary system can mostly promote the overall effectiveness of barrier-free facilities,tactile crosswalk paving can mostly promote the effectiveness of the touch auxiliary system,and the touch auxiliary system and hearing auxiliary system exists positive correlation.Thirdly,through SP survey,this study obtained the effectiveness evaluation data of tactile crosswalk paving.Ordered Logit model was used to analyze the influenced factors including demographic characteristics,travel characteristics,and the characteristics of tactile crosswalk paving.The results show that the education,degree of visual impairment,cause of visual impairment,duration of visual impairment,household size,net monthly family income,orientation training,frequency of tactile paving usage,travel with cane,travel in a familiar environment,regular maintenance of pavement,correct placement of tactile bricks and discernible texture can significantly affect the effectiveness of tactile crosswalk paving.Finally,this research conducted the field trial in signal intersection scenarios,by recording the data in four kinds of experimental scheme,to investigate the effectiveness of tactile crosswalk paving,accessible pedestrian signal and the combination.The results show that the tactile crosswalk paving plays a significant role in helping reduce the offset distance and keeping in the boundary of crosswalk,the accessible pedestrian signal can reduce the crossing time,and the combination of the two facilities is worthy of further research and optimization.The results of this study can provide suggestions for the construction of barrier-free facilities system,and provide data support and theoretical guidance for the optimization of barrier-free facilities used in the crosswalk.The research conclusions are of practical significance for improving the effectiveness of barrier-free facilities and achieving the travel equality of people with visual impairment.