Toll motorway accessibility for wheelchair users: a survey.

Objective: To identify difficulties encountered by wheelchair users who travel on toll motorways, with the goal of defining areas for improvement.

Design: Survey. After observing a wheelchair user travelling on a toll motorway and using the associated services, we designed a self-questionnaire on perceptions by wheelchair users of toll motorway accessibility.

Setting: Toll motorway and rehabilitation hospital in France.

Subjects: We recruited 167 wheelchair users by advertisement and, to assess selection bias, 19 consecutive outpatients who visited our hospital's wheelchair showroom.

Intervention: None.

Results: Of the 186 included subjects, 91 (49%) were used to driving independently on toll motorways. Among them, only 16% used automatic toll booths and 32% reported difficulties at toll booths. Furthermore, 53% routinely asked for help at filling stations, and only 27% were aware of the availability of a free-of-charge assistance service for disabled people at some filling stations. Among the 186 toll motorway users, only 84 (45%) reported never encountering difficulties in lay-bys; 162 (87%) felt that toilet accessibility was the most important feature of lay-bys and 143 (77%) preferred the locked toilets reserved for disabled people.

Conclusion: Wheelchair users reported difficulties on toll motorways that could be corrected fairly easily.