Being blind at the central station

We went to the central station in order to test how it would feel to be dependant on markings in the ground to be able to navigate. Although the white rills were easy to spot upon arriving at the central station, our first question was, how does a blind person find the rills at first?

The white markings cover the entire central station but there are some places where you cannot go by simply following them and this makes it possible to lose track of the markings. Aside from that, they do what they are supposed to since we managed to navigate from the busses down to the ticket machines and then to the trains. Although this solution is not flawless it works to some extent, the major problem, however, was other people. In the picture attached below we can see how the white paths cross the very heavily trafficated entrance to the central station main building. This is a problem. In this situation where people are stressed to catch a specific train they completely seem to ignore the fact that they are walking straight over the rills, without looking twice for blind people.  

The first time we walked on the rills it felt quite safe, mainly because we had each other. The second time we walked without any assistance and the experience became a lot more scary because of the above mentioned reason, other people running into you. This also became reality when crossing the entrance as a person managed to push us lightly since we got in his path.
We do feel that the rills are useful but not optimal. They clearly do what they are supposed to, leading blind people to where they need to go. The main problem right now might just be that “ordinary” people do not know about them and take no notice of them and the people walking on them. We both had seen them before and knew they existed, but had not given much thought about the fact that people actually relies on them to navigate through the central station.

/Andreas Lelli and Pontus Halldén