Accessibility to passenger trains: review and tests of innovative solutions

The accessibility requirement at the level of the train-platform system is essential for all railway passengers. However, it becomes of crucial importance when it refers to Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRM) or, in any case, people with temporary or permanent disabilities to whom it is necessary to guarantee safe and, at the same time, comfortable train access. Within the framework of the EU-funded project CARBODIN, MASATS, as a partner of this project, has conceived and built a prototype used for simulating and assessing the train accessibility for PRM. In this context, the paper describes the theoretical concepts and the experimental approach for testing a mock-up embedding a novel technical device to fill the existing horizontal and vertical gaps between trains and station platforms. Such a device is formulated to reduce the physical barriers at the interface between the train and the station platform, thus providing a solution for autonomous boarding of PRM.