Barrier-free travel
By rail and air
Transport can make or break barrier-free travel – and that means not only how people get to and
from their destination but also how they get around once they’re there. Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa,
the GNTB’s key transport partners, have recognised the signs of the times. They offer passengers with
restricted mobility a wide spectrum of services and see this as an essential part of modern-day
customer care and an investment in the future.
Deutsche Bahn: an impressive track
record in accessible travel
Deutsche Bahn is regarded as a leader in
barrier-free travel throughout Europe. For
years now, the German rail company has
offered extensive services for people with
restricted mobility. The first port of call for
German and international passengers is
Deutsche Bahn’s mobility service centre
(MSZ), which provides information on
specific services and offers, organises the
necessary assistance for boarding, chang-
ing and leaving trains, and is responsible
for tickets, seat reservations and other
services. Deutsche Bahn provides further
information online at www.bahn.de/
barrierefrei and in its brochure ‘Mobility
for the Disabled – Services for Mobility-
Impaired Customers’.
Deutsche Bahn develops its barrier-free
services in close consultation with dis­
abled people. Indeed this is how Deutsche
Bahn’s barrier-free travel centres were
set up: today 40 travel centres are
equipped with a tactile guidance system
for visually impaired people, lowered coun-
ters for wheelchair users and inductive
hearing loops, which allow hearing-aid
wearers to communicate with Deutsche
10 www.germany.travel
Bahn staff without wires or interference.
Some 6,800 new ticket machines have
Service staff at
also been made more accessible. Deaf Deutsche Bahn help
customers can use the email address passengers with restricted
deaf-msz@deutschebahn.com and find
mobility to board, change
sign-language videos on important travel
considerations online at www.bahn.de.
and leave trains at over
300 stations across
At over 300 stations, customer service Germany. In 2012, they
personnel will offer to help travellers with
responded to around
550,000
restricted mobility to board, change and
leave trains. Since late 2012, passengers
calls
have also been able to get assistance at for assistance.
unmanned stations from on-board staff,
provided they give advance notification.
Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains are
largely barrier-free with low access doors,
tactile lettering and symbols, wheelchair
spaces and disabled toilets. All local trains
should be barrier-free from 2017. Deutsche
Bahn is also modernising around 100 sta-
tions a year, with new lifts among the
many improvements to accessibility.
Paving the way for barrier-free
package tours
Ellen Engel-Kuhn, head of the disability
“As a transport provider for the tourism in- liaison office at Deutsche Bahn
dustry, we believe that strategic alliances
in the tourism industry are extremely im-
portant,” says Ellen Engel-Kuhn, head of