In response to the second review of the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002 the Australian Government has developed The Whole Journey: A guide for thinking beyond compliance to create accessible public transport journeys.
The Guide seeks to encourage policy makers, planners, designers, builders, certifiers and operators to think beyond compliance and the physical and governance boundaries of services and infrastructure and focus instead on people's accessibility needs across their whole journey.
The Whole Journey Guide was endorsed by all state and territory transport Ministers at the Transport and Infrastructure Council meeting held on 10 November 2017. The guide was developed following a comprehensive consultation process involving all the major stakeholders including disability non-government organisations, public transport providers, and all levels of government, service providers and other interested individuals.
Initially this involved in-depth consultations and workshops around the nation with stakeholders including disability non-government organisations, public transport providers, and all levels of government, service providers and other interested individuals.
The draft guide was available for public comment from 27 March to 14 June 2017 and 43 formal submissionswere received. During this time the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development also partnered with Disabled People's Organisations Australia to hold in-depth focus group workshops with people with disability in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin.