ABSTRACT
Persons with a mental handicap are among people the most vulnerable to this kind of difficulties. Results presented, concerning these potential users of public transportation, allow to appraise their problems in depth and to propose some recommandations for action. The aims of the research studies carried out in France on this topic were: the understanding of the nature of the non-architectonic barriers in public transportation; the study of moving practices of mentally users who are potentially in trouble in front of these barriers; the assessment of a methodological process for training such potential travellers, according to their cognitive levels. Eighty subjects with a Mental Handicap were selected and 20 non handicapped subjects were added for comparison. Among the subjects with a Mental Handicap, 50 were adults working in 8 different sheltered workshops and 30 were adolescents trained in special schools. Age were selected in order to keep a representative range from 14 to 60 years.
