This article reviews the current state of the Spanish railways in terms of interurban accessibility and cognitive abilities. Identifies key user requirements and proposes a design of door opening mechanism for rolling stock, looking for the universalisation of the accessibility conditions and improvement of railway exploitation process. The design of the proposed door opening provides remarkable improvements in accessibility to all users of interurban rail, resulting in a significant reduction in boarding times for disabled people, regardless of their limitations.

 

The proposed solution solves most of the problems of accessibility in high-speed interurban rail, within the restrictions resulting from the operation of these trains in terms of functionality, comfort, cost and maintenance.

 

The continuous evolution of rail transport has led to the current adoption of different platforms and car platforms for passenger transport, the same way that the requirements imposed by the terrain and urban environments have defined the curvature radius of the lines and conditioned the lengths of platforms. Therefore, there are several possible fronts of action in relation to rail accessibility.