Celeste often has to go through Madrid: to the city, but also to Rivas or Parla. You do it by public transport, and to make your trips you have to change vehicles: by sections, by metro, by sections by bus, or by intercity, or by Cercanías. To do this, he carries several transport cards in his wallet, which causes him some confusion and wastes time, complicating his travel. That is why this person with an intellectual disability wants to have in his wallet a single card, such as the youth card or the senior card, which will simplify his life.
“Sometimes I have to go out and get another ticket; “You waste a lot of time looking for the card, and trying to figure out which one it is, one or the other,” he explains. Next to him, Kiko, in the same situation, agrees: “It happens to me too, I have trouble distinguishing between the different cards.” Sometimes even Celeste confesses that she is losteven though he always finds someone to give him a hand: “I tell them: ‘Hey, I can’t get the ticket,’ and they do it for me.”
Celeste now has the blue card for municipal buses, a voucher for 10 bus journeys in the region – which allows her to go to Fuenlabrada, or to La Cabrera –, and a Renfe Cercanías card, which is the one she uses to get there. to Parla. She also has a Renfe gold card, to travel to Toledo, which is fare zone E of the Community of Madrid. “But this one has expired; “Now I have to renew it.”
She and Kiko want to have a single transport ticket that makes their travel easier and avoids moments of confusion. “We waste a lot of time looking for the card and clarifying which card it is.” That is why they are asking for a card that “allows us to get on buses, the metro and trains throughout Madrid.”
They are supported in this same objective by the Federation of Organizations of People with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities, Plena Inclusion Madrid, which has formally requested from the Community of Madrid a single transport card for people with a disability of more than 33 percent. There is now one, but it is intended for people with a disability of more than 65 percent, which leaves out many users who need it. According to the organization’s figures, the Community of Madrid has a total of 407,749 people with disabilities. “The single card would benefit a significant percentage of this figure; “It would be a simple and simplified solution to this problem,” they point out.
They point out in Plena Inclusion that “currently, people with intellectual disabilities who want to use transport throughout the region must have numerous cards that offer unequal benefits: the Madrid City Council blue card, valid only for zone A; the Community of Madrid reduced pass, which offers a discount to people with a disability of more than 65%; and the RENFE Cercanías gold card, which, like the regional pass, does not benefit people with a disability of between 33% and 65%.
Obstacles
Such disparity in the cards and in the services they cover generates “a certain confusion for users, and represents an obstacle to the daily travel of people with disabilities”.
The Plena Inclusion Madrid proposal consists of simplifying all these transport tickets into a single pass, “which allows people with intellectual or developmental disabilities to move around the Community of Madrid on all available regional transport: EMT bus, Consortium bus, metro, light rail, Cercanías Train, etc. It should have an affordable price, “just like the transport ticket of other groups”, they recall, while insisting that their request aims above all to “promote accessibility, it is not an economic measure”.
“For people with intellectual disabilities, leaving home becomes a mess of passes and cards if we have to use more than one means of transport through the cities and towns of Madrid,” stresses the Autonomous Committee of Representatives of Plena Inclusion Madrid. They insist that using public transport to go to work, study or see family or friends “should not be a problem.” Hence the need to have this single card.
The Federation has forwarded this proposal to the Minister of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Jorge Rodrigo, who, according to the organization, “has shown his willingness to promote this initiative, within the scope of the powers of the Regional Council.” Transport Consortium. In this sense, sources from the Ministry explain that “as promised in a meeting held last July” with the Councilor, the Regional Transport Consortium and the Madrid City Council, “work is underway on the unification of the cards, to create a single one for Madrid transport, with the exception of the Renfe ticket, since Cercanías is not managed by the Community of Madrid. They also recall that the virtual use of the transport ticket has already been announced, which will simplify its use.
Plena Inclusion would also support a simplification of the six current fare zones in the region, as “the current distribution draws a transport map that is too complex”.
