Evidence review: Access to public transport for deaf people and people with hearing loss in the UK

Public transport review executive summary

This review was funded by the Motability Foundation as part of a larger research project. The results of this review were used to inform RNID’s research on public transport use, which begins to fill the significant gaps in the evidence.

This page presents the results of a rapid review of the evidence relating to access to public transport for deaf people and people with hearing loss.

• We reviewed 2,340 records identified through a primary database search (Web of Science and Scopus) and a grey literature search
• The search protocol was designed with input from RNID subject experts, and an Advisory Board of people with lived experience
• Of these, we included a total of 21 pieces of academic literature and 19 pieces of grey literature in the review

Read more about RNID’s approach to evidence reviews.

Findings

The primary finding of this review was that there were significant gaps in the available evidence. Despite initially restricting the search to studies based in the UK, we had to expand to include research that offered relevant transferrable insights from other contexts due to the extremely limited evidence available.

Research was also characterised by small numbers of deaf people and people with hearing loss as part of a larger cohort of disabled people or people with sensory impairments, and it was therefore rarely possible to draw out specific insights related to subgroups such as deaf sign language users.

• We found no published literature that focused exclusively on the experiences of deaf people and people with hearing loss using public transport in the UK
• Only 2 of the 21 published studies were UK-specific. All grey literature was from the UK.
• Most studies only included a small number of deaf people or people with hearing loss. The smallest sample size was one person.

However, we were able to identify problems with access to public transport, which informed the design of our subsequent research project.

• 33% of disabled people “always” experience access challenges, or barriers that made it difficult to travel when they, or people they travelled with, were using public transport [1]
• 76% of people with a disability related to hearing felt mentally exhausted from using public transport [2]
• We identified issues affecting the accessibility of public transport across three themes: infrastructure, information access, and social or attitudinal issues.

Research gaps

This review identified a general lack of robust evidence. The first area we identified was therefore a need for more research about the experiences of deaf people and people with hearing loss using public transport in the UK. Research about deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users was particularly lacking.

We have sought to address this through our research funded by the Motability Foundation. However, we also identified other research gaps and encourage further expansion of the evidence:

• Exploration of experiences considering intersection with other sociodemographic characteristics such as race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality, or people with multiple disabilities or long-term conditions
• Investigation of how transport policy and guidance is applied in practice by different transport operators
• The current application and potential of technological innovation, such as AI, to improve access to public transport

Policy context

Responsibility for transport policy in the UK is spread across different bodies depending on the country. Devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are able to set their own transport strategies, and the Department for Transport and Secretary for Transport set the national strategy in England, while local transport authorities have powers to make decisions locally.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have autonomy over most of the transport policy, but must respect UK wide regulations where applicable.

Read our public transport policy statement.

Supplementary materials:

• Rapid evidence review protocol
• Rapid evidence review search tracker
• PRISMA flow reporting review results
• Study characteristics table

Sources

[1] House of Commons (2025) Access Denied: rights versus reality in disabled people’s access to transport. First report of Session 2024-25 (Transport Committee)

[2] Motability (2025) Creating an inclusive future: addressing accessible transport needs for young disabled people