Inclusive Mobility: A Guide to Best Practice on Access to Pedestrian and Transport Infrastructure.

Inclusive Mobility is DfT guidance for anyone designing or installing public realm schemes: local authorities and their consultants, highways practitioners and urban designers. It is aimed mainly at transport infrastructure and the public highway, but DfT says much of its advice is relevant to private land the public can use. It covers footways, crossings, changes in level, tactile paving, cycling infrastructure, car parking, bus and tram stops, taxi ranks, transport buildings, digital information, signing, lighting and the countryside.

The December 2021 edition replaced the original 2002 guide. It draws on DfT research published in 2020 and cross-refers to BS 8300, the Approved Documents, TSRGD 2016 and the Traffic Signs Manual. DfT says the next update will be considered within five years.

Chapter 13 is one of the few free, government-published sources of numeric guidance on accessible signs. Beyond the figures above, it gives a table relating symbol size to viewing distance, recommends sans serif, mixed case lettering, and sets out optimum viewing angles. Where a sign is likely to be obscured by passers-by, it suggests mounting it at 2000mm or higher, and for safety notices it suggests duplicating the sign at two heights for standing and seated viewers.

On braille, it says grade 1 is acceptable for single words but contracted (grade 2) braille should be used where a sign has more than one word, and notes that embossed text will generally help more people than braille.

Chapter 4 explains tonal and colour contrast: colours that look different can be tonally similar, and a quick test is a black and white photograph. Chapter 8 covers accessible parking, which matters for car park signage and bay marking. Chapter 7 sets clearances of 2300mm for pedestrians and 2400mm for cyclists below signs over shared routes, referring to the Traffic Signs Manual.

This is DfT guidance, written for England. It is guidance rather than law, but following it supports compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty, and it is widely used as the benchmark for the public realm. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, check the local highway authority's position. In Ireland the closest equivalents are the NDA's Building for Everyone booklets and I.S. EN 17210.