ReadiBus

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter ReadiBus on the IDR with Coley in the background
Mercedes-Benz T1 and a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter ReadiBus's on Broad Street in 1999

ReadiBus is an on-demand transport service for people with restricted mobility in the area of Reading, Berkshire, England. It is one of the most successful and enduring of such systems to be created. service operates as a charity.[1]

History

Foundation

ReadiBus was founded in 1981 by a collaboration between the voluntary sector and Reading Borough Council.[2] It was the brainchild of Colm Lyons who developed the idea in collaboration with David Cochrane of Bulmershe College, Reading, now part of Reading University and established the system on the ground. Lyons, a Chilean of Irish descent whose family fled Chile in the aftermath of the 1973 coup was a strong advocate of disabled rights.

Influenced by people like the Brazilian Paolo Freire, Lyons considered that people were not of themselves disabled but were disabled by society and by the attitudes of the majority population. He organized the funding for the project not through the usual channels for social projects but by persuading the council and the government that the project should be run alongside the public transport system in the town and should appear in a modified form of the public system livery. In doing so he incurred opposition from many groups for disabled and elderly in the area who felt that they were losing their power over their members for whom they had provided limited forms of transport to their own facilities. Lyons considered such groups to be more motivated by self-interest than real concern for disabled rights and argued that public transport to a destination of one's own choice was a right of all people and should be available to those with restricted mobility.

Lyons returned to Chile in 2001 and became active in issues of indigenous rights. He died on a winter trip in the Andes between Chile and Argentina in July 2009.

References

  1. ↑ ReadiBus, Reading Area Charities Together, UK.
  2. ↑ ReadiBus, Reading Borough Council, UK.


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