Metro de Madrid

General Accessibility

In order to bring the service closer by the day to more inhabitants in the Region, Metro de Madrid, through successive Expansion Plans, has managed to offer great acessibility at a regional level, reaching 12 municipalities in the Madrid Region, in which 76% of inhabitants have a Metro station that is less than 600 metres from their home.

Work is also continuing to improve accessibility to the existing network with a series of measures involving stations and rolling stock.

Universal accessibility measures in stations

Metro de Madrid is developing a series of measures and guidelines that have been chosen by the Board for the Promotion of Accessibility and the Removal of Barriers in public transport in the Madrid Region. The measures, aimed at improving accessibility at facilities, will extend to the whole network and will be introduced in various phases.

The list of measures implemented is as follows:

- Installation of items to negotiate level differences: Lifts, escalators and/or ramps.

- Platform edges indicated with button-shaped paving placed along their length.

- Security areas on platforms and at ticket machines indicated by grooved paving.

- Indication of entrance to and exit from fixed stairways by grooved paving in the direction of movement.

- Step edges marked with non-slip strips.

- Extension of fixed stairway handrails where necessary.

- Additional signs for passengers with large size posters and highlighting line numbers and the direction in which they travel, as appropriate.

- Making of obstacles and pillars with red vinyl strips.

- Elimination of obstacles and black spots.

- Placement of ischiatic supports on platforms.

- Adaptation of handrails and access gates.

- Braille labels on stairway handrails, indicating the traffic direction.

- Braille text on lift signs.

- Installation of voice cards in lifts with more than two stops.

- Ticket machines with information in Braille and voice-activated browsing system (the only underground network in the world that has extended this to all its vending machines).

- Installation of easy opening electrohydraulic springs on windshield partition doors.

- Adaptation, where necessary, of the lighting system in accesses, also to prevent reflections.

- Installation of screens on L-2 platforms to display messages.

- Adaptation of the platform edges on L-7 to ensure correct unfolding of the ramps installed in the front carriages of the new rolling stock (3000 and 9000)

Measures to aid accessibility in rolling stock

- Strong colour contrast between the doors and the rest of the bodywork of the train.

- Unfolding ramp on the first door of the first carriage of each train.

- Colour contrast on the door opening button and indication of this button in Braille.

- Colour contrast on holding bars and seats throughout the whole length of the train.

- Visual and acoustic indications of the opening and closing of the doors, both on the inside and on the outside of the train.

- Space reserved in the first carriage of each train to anchor wheelchairs and ischiatic support, with descriptive pictograms.

- Partition separating the reserved space.