SMRT Buses boosts training to better aid those with disabilities
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Front-line staff of SMRT Buses undergoing training to better communicate with and help commuters with special needs. The public transport operator has partnered the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore and charity SPD to conduct training for its staff.
PHOTO: SMRT CORPORATION
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Public transport operator SMRT Buses is enhancing training for its front-line staff to better assist commuters with special needs.
Front-line staff, such as bus drivers and interchange managers, will learn how to communicate with and help commuters with different physical and intellectual disabilities.
SMRT has partnered the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (Minds) and SPD, a charity which serves people with disabilities, to conduct training for its staff, it said in a release yesterday.
It is also trialling an app to help commuters with visual disabilities navigate the new Woodlands Integrated Transport Hub, which will be operational from June 13 and will be the largest integrated transport hub in Singapore.
The NaviLens app provides audio assistance to commuters with visual disabilities when they point a mobile phone camera in the general direction of a coloured tag.
The tags are placed at various locations in the transport hub and can be captured from far without the need to focus the camera lens.
More than 700 employees have been trained since SMRT Buses launched its inclusive service delivery training centre in 2019.
The training centre will be located at the new transport hub in Woodlands, which is listed as a dementia go-to point by the Agency for Integrated Care. Such go-to points serve as resource centres on dementia and "safe return" points where the public can take people with dementia who may appear lost to help them reunite with their caregivers.
Minds chief executive Kelvin Koh said: "Not all disabilities are visible, especially for persons with intellectual disability, who may struggle with communications."
This training link-up is a clear demonstration of SMRT's leadership in advancing the inclusion movement in a concrete and meaningful way, he added.
Other features of the new transport hub include a bus boarding assistance panel, which has Braille plates and artificial intelligence-enabled closed-circuit television cameras which alert SMRT staff to wheelchair users or commuters with walking aids.
