Institute of Transportation, MOTC

       Accessible Elevator is an indispensable and important facility for the people with disabilities in public transit stations. However, the fact is that most elevator users are general users who can use stairs, escalators and other lifting equipment that causes the people with disabilities must wait for a long time during the peak hours and resulted in lower service level for these people. In order to understand the use condition of Accessible Elevator, this Study took 10 elevators of Taipei MRT Station Platform as examples to observe the on-site use status, and record the waiting conditions of 604 trips for the elevator and waiting condition for 2,413 users. The Study results found that the proportion of people with disabilities is relatively low, but the probability for them waiting for elevators is higher than that of other people. The main reason is that the average users lack of culture of courtesy. In 49% of the cases, the average users do not give precedence out of courtesy for the people with disabilities at the elevator entrance, and resulted in the people with disabilities must wait for the elevator for a long time during peak hours, which is contrary to the purpose of the Accessible Elevator originally designed to provide priority use of specific groups of people; in addition, this Study is based on the Logistic Mode Analysis Results shows that the people with disabilities face the  probability of having to wait for the elevator is significantly higher, especially the situation is more serious for the elevator serving the third floor platform, and the courtesy behavior of general users is not significantly different between stations, various platform, elevators and different time periods, showing that this behavior is not unique to a single station or area, and the publicity promotion, education and other improvement measures must be strengthened by the overall MRT system level, in order to cultivate the courtesy culture of MRT users.

      In order to find the improvement plan, this Study is based on the results of elevator use survey and analysis, under the framework of three main themes of new facilities, optimized management, and enhanced publicity promotion, to research and submit 14 improvement plans, and conducted the effectiveness and feasibility assessment with expert questionnaire and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), as the basis to research and submit four plans that can be promoted in priority and four other plans that can be promoted based on the situation. The station planning/operation management unit can be included in the assessment as the reference to optimize the improvement management strategy of existing stations and the design of future new stations.