A lone wheelchair user was left stranded outside Stirling railway station for around six hours on Sunday morning.
There had been no accessible taxis available to take David Tares home to Sauchie after he missed the last train to Alloa due to a signal fault causing delays at the Edinburgh side of his journey.
David has cerebral palsy and has been using an electric wheelchair for around seven years.
He had been at Waverley to catch the 11.03pm service set to arrive in Stirling at 11.47pm. However, the train did not leave until 12.15am, missing the 11.56pm Stirling-Alloa connection. It arrived in Stirling around 1am.
Services between Edinburgh and Dunblane had been disrupted from 10pm that night due to a signal failure at Edinburgh Park.
Celtic supporter David, who regularly attends home matches at Parkhead – where he had been earlier that day before travelling to Edinburgh for a gig at the Queen’s Hall – relies on Scotrail’s accessible travel service for people with disabilities to get around.
Scotrail customer service centre staff had contacted several taxi firms early Sunday, in the Stirling area and further afield, to source David an accessible taxi, but had no success.
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The 60-year-old told the Observer this week: “I was left outside Stirling station in the cold and dark for about six hours alone on Sunday morning. It was fortunate that the weather was fairly mild. There was nowhere I could go to the toilet and I was in some discomfort.
“The waiting at Waverley had been bad enough. Usually there is a member of staff at a station aware that there is a disabled passenger to see that you are ok and phone ahead, but this didn’t happen at Waverley that night.
“When I got to Stirling around 1am I called Scotrail and they were very understanding, but they could not find me an accessible taxi given the time of night. I called taxi firms as well without success.
“There should have been some kind of fallback position to help me.
“In this day and age this shouldn’t be happening.”
David called again for a taxi at 6.30am and one arrived three quarters of an hour later to take him to Sauchie where he lives with partner Hayley and step daughter Poppy-May.
He started using a wheelchair when his condition began to deteriorate with age. Joints in all four of his limbs have become stiff affecting coordination and dexterity.
David added: “I don’t know how I managed to get through waiting all that time to be honest. It had been such a good day and evening and I think that’s where I found the strength to get through what was a pretty traumatic experience.
“It reinforced my view that unless you are a wheelchair user you don’t really understand the physical and attitudinal barriers we face.”
Stirling Area Access Panel (SAAP) told the Observer this week that they had received a complaint from another wheelchair user earlier this year who had difficulty finding an accessible taxi.
SAAP chairman Robert Dick said: “SAAP are aware of the lack of accessible taxis in Stirling. We received a complaint in January from a wheelchair user.
“We asked Stirling Council for numbers of accessible taxis, currently there are 35 out of a total of 192. In practice, it means that a wheelchair user may not be able to get an accessible taxi on demand or prebook one, as was the case over the festive period.
“The number of accessible taxis obviously falls short of the necessary number and it is appalling that a wheelchair user [Mr Tares] found himself so disadvantaged in just trying to get home.”
ScotRail head of customer operations Phil Campbell said this week: “We’re deeply sorry that Mr Tares had to go through this experience.
“Our staff did everything they could to try and source an accessible taxi, including contacting taxi firms more than 30 miles away.
“We’re carrying out an investigation to help ensure incidents like this don’t happen again, and will be in touch with Mr Tares directly about his experience.”
A Stirling Council spokesperson said: “The council sympathises with this passenger for the wait he faced, whilst acknowledging that taxis are in peak demand for all users at this time of the weekend.
“Of the 192 licensed vehicles in the Stirling Council area, of which 79 are taxi vehicles and 113 private hire vehicles, 35 are wheelchair accessible.
“The future provision of wheelchair accessible vehicles will be form part of the council’s upcoming unmet demand survey.”
