Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Field observation and committee inquiry report

Leading the way: Travelling with a sensory impairment in London

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/london-assembly-2016-sensory-travel/ · record checked 13 October 2026

  • London Assembly Transport Committee
  • Greater London Authority

Government (London Assembly, the elected body that scrutinises the Mayor of London and Transport for London)

Summary

A London Assembly committee's investigation into travel in London with a sensory impairment, including a site visit on which the committee's chair rode a new bus with two hearing aid users and observed problems with its hearing loop.

Key findings

  • Gathered written submissions from operators and sensory impairment organisations, views from individuals through an online survey, email and phone, a formal meeting on 9 March 2016, and a site visit on which the committee's chair shadowed two hearing aid users on a bus journey on a new Routemaster route.
  • On that bus, the chair observed that electrical interference produced an unpleasant buzz, particularly behind the driver's cab where there is an electrical cabinet, and that the loop had a very limited reach: people could hear it only in the priority seats nearest the middle door, and not in those across the aisle.
  • Reports that in London the bus loop wire covers a specific area of the bus rather than the whole bus, that only newer buses have a loop, and that some buses, including the new Routemaster, had no loop sign at the door, only a small sign set back inside.
  • Quotes Action on Hearing Loss telling the committee that loops are often installed but not working properly, with interference or a shorter range than they should have, or without signs, and that loops need to be installed, maintained, advertised and understood by staff. A passenger with a hearing impairment described "a constant synchronised electronic whine that matches the speed of the bus engine".
  • Reports that TfL was exploring with hearing impaired people how to address the interference, reposition the loops and increase their range, and recommends that TfL improve loop signs inside buses (showing where the loop works best) and outside (showing whether the bus has a loop).
  • Appendix B, printed p. 27, dates the committee chair’s site visit, including the bus journey, to 25 February 2016. The two-hearing-aid-user sample is stated on pp. 6-7; the spatial reception and interference observations appear on p. 20.

Limits

A political committee's report built from submissions, an online survey whose size is not given, and one bus journey observed by listening; no field-strength measurements. London buses in 2016 only. Read from the report PDF (www.london.gov.uk/media/51707/download), which matches the publication page.

Read the original

www.london.gov.uk/assembly-publications/leading-way-travelling-sensory-impairment-london

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Cited in

Cite this source

London Assembly Transport Committee. Leading the way: Travelling with a sensory impairment in London. Greater London Authority. 18 March 2016. https://www.london.gov.uk/assembly-publications/leading-way-travelling-sensory-impairment-london (accessed 13 October 2026).

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