Bridge plate (mechanism)


A bridge plate, or bridgeplate, is a mechanical, movable form of wheelchair ramp that is used on some low-floor light rail vehicles to provide for wheelchair access. The bridge plate extends from the vehicle to the platform, which must be raised to close to the level of the floor of the vehicle so that the wheelchair need not travel over an excessively steep ramp. Some low-floor buses also use bridge plates to provide for wheelchair access, but many low-floor buses instead use a ramp that normally serves as part of the floor but can be flipped out through the door onto the curb or street; in this case the ramp is long enough that it can serve as a true wheelchair ramp rather than a bridge without being excessively steep.
Bridge plates can be manually deployed or powered, rectractable ramps. The first passenger rail cars in North America to be equipped with retractable bridge plates were TriMet's Siemens SD660 LRVs, the first of which were completed in 1996. Earlier, in 1987, the newly opened Sacramento RT Light Rail system used non-powered, station-platform-mounted bridge plates to bridge the gap between a high-platform section at each station and the floor of an LRV.

Manually operated bridge plates

On some railway stations in France and the United Kingdom, it may not be possible provide permanent level access from the platform to the train if different types of trains pass through or serve the station. To overcome this issue, a station may have one or more staff-operated boarding ramp on the platforms, to be deployed when a wheelchair user boards the train.