Part V. Building the foundations for comfortable living environments
Section 1. Measures for comfortable living environments for persons with disabilities
- To promote accessible public housing to persons with disabilities and accessible physical environment for public use such as government buildings and facilities.
- To promote such accessible public transport as passenger terminals and trains as well as accessible walking space.
- To promote establishment of traffic signals taken into account persons with disabilities and traffic road environments accessible to persons with disabilities for the purpose of ensuring safety and accessibility of persons with disabilities.
- To promote specific measures for vulnerable persons including persons with disabilities who need to be assisted in case of disaster in various situations such as disseminating knowledge of preventing disaster, providing disaster information and instructing emergency evacuation.
- To promote specific measures for removing difficulties in having access to the police as well as measures for preventing crime against persons with disabilities.
[ Principal measures implemented ]
- In order to further promote accessibility to physical environments, amended Heart Building Law containing that 1) expanding application to specific buildings, 2) setting requirements for application of accessibility standards to construction of special and specific buildings, 3) adding repair and remodeling of specific facilities to the list of requirements, 4) expanding support measures for certified physical environments, and 5) delegating mandate to responsible administrative governments (municipal governors who set constructing managers) came into force on 1st April 2003.
- "Standard Specification for Next-Generation Non-step Bus" was established in March 2003, and a certification system that checks whether a non-step bus complies with the standard specification was established in January 2004.
- In order to establish accessible society where all persons including persons with disabilities have an easy access to their living disabilities to their living environments, accessible equipment for traffic safety like traffic lights and pedestrian roads, as one of the most important pillars for promoting accessible walking space, was established in accordance with "Infrastructure Development Priority Program" starting from FY 2003.
- In order to make transportation more accessible to elderly persons and persons with physical disabilities, the system was revised in FY 2003 so that paid transportation system could be operated voluntarily by NPOs as well as promoting dissemination of welfare taxi.
- In July 2003, "Task Force on Sharing Disaster-Prevention Information" attached to the Central Disaster Prevention Council prepared a report containing that 1) providing information in such accessible format as optic, vibration or text to persons who have difficulties in collecting information in case of emergency, 2) providing information as quickly as possible so that vulnerable persons who need to be assisted in case of disaster can react in good time, and 3) establishing the system of appropriately responding to an emergency call by e-mail sent from vulnerable persons who need to be assisted in case of disaster.
