Disabled transport and people with reduced mobility: TPMR and taxi PMR Paris
When our company opened its doors in 2009, it was exclusively focused on transporting people with reduced mobility and disabilities. From this date until 2021, eleven years of intensive activities have made it possible to prove our expertise in Île de France for the benefit of disabled people and people with loss of autonomy. To date, the greater proportion of seniors in French society has made our action necessary and required. Indeed, the French government gave a new impetus to our field of activity during the health crisis.
Transport for people with reduced mobility and disabilities: a necessity for the hospital world, EHPAD or in everyday life
Reserving a contracted taxi is an exclusive right studied by the CPAM according to the most serious pathologies. This service is highly regulated and comes into action when the person requires routine interventions. Unable to respond to all requests and under close control, this mode of medicalized transport is no longer sufficient to stem the high demand. It is therefore to overcome the shortcomings and fill the void that our transport company for people with reduced mobility and disabilities plays a leading role in Greater Paris.
Request for a transport reservation for people with reduced mobility as part of a return trip home following a discharge from hospital or medical consultation.
Request for transport for people with disabilities as part of a planned trip or a airport shuttle service.
Outing for leisure, activities, shopping or work.
With a decade of experience, Eden Transports is familiar with the sphere of disabled people and people with loss of autonomy. And contrary to value judgement, many of our wheelchair customers are wonderful people who need a specific service and who are often active.
Although society is moving in the right direction regarding PMR, there is still a lot to be done. The barriers facing customers are real. Our transport company for people with reduced mobility simplifies all the movements of everyday life through its specialized vehicles for the disabled.
WHO IS EXPLICITLY THE PUBLIC TARGETED BY DISABLED TRANSPORT?
In a broad sense, our company specializing in disabled transport is authorized to take care of people in wheelchairs.
However, the boundary is very blurred or imprecise as far as PRMs and the disabled are concerned.
Indeed, the legal texts have a purely medical approach to disability. The definition of a disabled person refers to “any minor or adult person with a significant limitation in their capacities for social or professional integration following an alteration of their mental, sensory or physical faculties, which generates the need for an intervention”.
While the person with reduced mobility includes anyone with a form of dependency that prevents them from moving independently.
The concept remains all the more confused. Nevertheless, a PRM is a disabled person but not necessarily the opposite. However, the transport of people with reduced mobility is also aimed at a wider public. By definition, the TPMR is aimed at people with motor disabilities.
By persons with disabilities, it is therefore necessary to include precisely:
- People with mental disorders or intellectual disabilities
- The visually impaired and blind
- The deaf and hard of hearing
- People with chronic illnesses requiring an accompanying person.
This clear and precise definition therefore includes a larger category of people that our company usually works with.
What are the quality and criteria required by our vehicles for the transport of people with reduced mobility in Paris?
PMR standards in the context of the transport and support of people with reduced mobility meet new normative requirements imposed by European directives and national laws.
Among these obligations, our vehicles must have approved space for the location of wheelchairs. In addition, the law of July 1, 2014 requires us to wear a lap and shoulder seat belt with 3 anchor points for transporting people with reduced mobility.
Specialized transport in disability situations requires skills and knowledge of basic behaviors to be able to exercise in complete safety. This is what our company is committed to by training its teams in this system.
To support people with reduced mobility, our drivers of people with disabilities are trained in techniques for attaching and anchoring wheelchairs in vehicles.
Thus, they ensure that the seat belts do not pass over the armrests of the chairs. Finally, they ensure that the seat belt passes as close as possible to the body of persons with reduced mobility. As another basic rule to apply, they respect the fact that each dependent person is installed facing the road.
If the foundations of the safety protocol are established, the drivers dedicate their person to ensure that the transport of people with reduced mobility is carried out in the best conditions. The installation is carried out in good and due form thanks to the electric ramps integrated into the heart of our vehicle fleet.
Our Parisian PMR taxi is a human service
Dealing with the transport of people with reduced mobility consists in carrying out a mission of driver with a social character. As such, in addition to courtesy and respect for road safety rules, our PMR drivers are used to showing psychology and patience. To organize a journey heavy with responsibility, we select, among our employees, those who have the most experience as well as an excellent physical condition.
Aware of the major dependence of PRMs, they have the inherent qualities to accompany disabled people in vehicles to medical appointments or for any need of everyday life such as shopping in the supermarket. Know that people with reduced mobility are people like the others. Some are very gifted and surpass us with their mental strength. This is the case of the CEO of the Ulysse network, the first French agency for disabled people, who himself is disabled.
So what did the athletes who participate in the sporting events of the Paralympic Games think?
Towards an improvement in transport aid for people with disabilities?
One thing is certain, the missions for the transport of disabled people are progressing ostensibly in French society. The various facts concerning discrimination against PRMs have a lot to do with it. And the judges by their power of appreciation as well as the case law rendered only go in the right direction.
Since 2010, the French legislator has therefore acted in favor of the transport of people with reduced mobility (TPMR). If the 2005 disability law for accessibility in public transport keeps its promises. It is the convenience at peak times that seems to undermine the transport of disabled people. This is what national companies such as SNCF or RATP are exposed to on a daily basis because of the influx.
In addition, many people with reduced mobility are unable to drive a vehicle on their own due to their disability. Otherwise, they do not have a sufficient budget to be able to properly arrange a means of personal transport. Or they are unable to board public transport.
Fortunately, organizations such as the MDPH or the AGEFIPH are fighting and have financial aid so that these people continue to have TPMR.
