The Role of Online Transportation in Supporting

the Mobility of Therapists with Visual Impairment in Surabaya

Danny Heru Dwi Hartanto

Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: blind, online transport, service, disabilities

Abstract: In the era of technological advancement, various tools could help people with disability to live as regular

citizens by performing their jobs to fulfil their daily needs. People with disabilities may work by using tools

such as sticks, wheelchairs, communication devices, and other tools to assist people with visual impairments

in accessing information. This issue is also equally important when it comes to transportation which has a

role in increasing productivity. It can be argued that if the city can provide mass transportation, it will be

significantly useful to society regarding cost efficiency and it will also support people’s productivity. A trip

that takes long hours with traffic congestion causes people with disabilities to have difficulties in fulfilling

their daily needs which even makes the availability of more comfortable transportation for disabled people

necessary. This is because disabled people are unlikely or usually unable to ride a vehicle such as a

motorcycle or drive a car, particularly people with low vision or visual impairment and other severe

disabilities. Therefore, online transportation becomes an efficient alternative in supporting the mobility of

people with visual impairment who mostly work as therapists. By using existing smartphone devices, they

can easily access apps to receive faster services.

1 INTRODUCTION

The rampant of online transportation has had a

considerable impact on economic development in

Indonesia. One of the impacts is that online

transportation can serve as an alternative to mass

transportation services which are still lacking in

Indonesia. Istianto & Mulamin (2017) argue that “in

general, the public opinion regarding the use of

online transportation is much cheaper, convenient

and practical.” This means that the existence of

online transportation leads to more efficiency in

terms of cost and time, particularly for people with

disabilities such as people with low vision, visual

impairment and those who are entirely blind.

Blind people, practically-speaking, cannot access

private vehicles independently like other normal

people. Volunteers to help blind people cannot

always be available whenever they need some

assistance, especially when it comes to going to

work every day. Although they have disabilities,

they still want to do their job since that will be

helpful to fulfil their daily needs. They realise that

having meaningful careers could contribute to their

financial independence, mean they belong to the

society, have a valued role within the community,

and overall life satisfaction (Hagler et al., 2015).

Sixty percent of people with visual impairment

in Surabaya possess a profession such as being a

health therapist. Therefore, it is necessary for them

to be able to access transportation easily, to help

them going from one place to another. This is

because their job depends on the call order from

customers who need a therapist to go to their house.

According to Brown (2015), when disabled people

work for a company, usually company leaders will

provide housing for their disabled employees.

However, it is different when people with visual

impairment have a profession as a call therapist

since most of them prefer to work individually.

Their transportation costs so they have mobility as a

call therapist becomes a separate issue. Even in

developed countries like America, the cost of

preparing and commuting for people with

disabilities is also a problem (National Council on

Disabilities, 2009 in Brown, 2015). It will encourage

the blind therapists to raise their tariffs to compete

with normal therapists who can ride their private

vehicles such as motorcycles which minimise the

transportation expenses. As a result, they are able to

278

Hartanto, D.

The Role of Online Transportation in Supporting the Mobility of Therapists with Visual Impairment in Surabaya.

DOI: 10.5220/0008820302780280

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Social and Political Affairs (ICoCSPA 2018), pages 278-280

ISBN: 978-989-758-393-3

charge their customers cheaper fees and provide a

faster service since they can avoid traffic congestion.

On the other hand, a blind therapist who is using

public transportation with such traffic conditions

cannot provide a satisfactory service to the

customer. This kind of ineffectiveness means the

blind therapist has a lower income, due to the longer

time it takes to travel, the slow services which make

them limited in terms of the total number of clients

they can see each day, since they do not have

sufficient time to move from one area to another.

Related to the above problems, the purpose of

this paper is to discuss the role of online

transportation as a means of supporting blind

therapist mobility in Surabaya. It is expected that

this kind of topic could be open to public discourse

because, in today's era of technological

advancement, the technology of online

transportation is very beneficial for people with

disabilities, especially when they have to go to work

every day to increase their economic welfare.

2 METHOD

This study uses a qualitative approach and interview

as its data collection method. The researchers

interviewed the Secretary of Perkumpulan Tunanetra

Alumni Malang (Pertama) as an informant who also

works as a therapist. According to Neuman (2014),

the informant who served as a research subject

should be a professional in his field. In addition, the

researchers also used a literature study to obtain data

for the research which related to the topic and used a

theoretical framework to enrich the results and

discussion.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

This research is departing from the facts that the

income of people with disabilities is lower than that

of normal people (Livermore & Honeycutt, 2015).

This is due to the very limited job opportunities for

people with disabilities and so disabled people have

limited options regarding their job. The labour job

recruitment also cannot always accommodate people

with disabilities. As a consequence, the vast majority

of blind people in Surabaya work in the informal

sector as health therapists (Badiah et al., 2017)

This situation will create a gap, particularly

regarding income between disabled people and

normal people. For instance, when they have to

compete in the same field as other call therapists,

normal people would find it easier to move from one

area to another, while, for the blind therapist, it

would be difficult.

Moreover, blind people have more mobility

constraints than people who are not disabled. When

a blind therapist receives a client call, they cannot

directly ride a vehicle; because of their limited

vision, they desperately need an accessible means of

transportation and way to facilitate them in moving

from one place to another.

The shortcomings of public transportation such

as traffic congestion and slower movement make the

travel time for call therapists longer. This situation

makes them unable to serve many customers;

instead, this will limit the number of customers that

they will serve in a day. Therefore, this condition

makes online transportation an alternative means of

transportation for blind therapists. The Daily

Octagon quoted an IT expert Heru Sutadi; he stated

that “Not all public transportation could bring the

people directly in front of to the house destination.

Right now it available online motorcycle and online

taxis.” It proves that blind therapists mostly use

online transportation because it is very accessible for

them (Istianto & Maulamin, 2017).

Budianto, the Secretary of Pertama, explained

that "the presence of online transportation is

beneficial in the therapeutic profession because they

have to move from one region to another to fulfil the

customers’ calls. It is significantly more efficient in

terms of time and cost as well as it provides

convenience since that they directly arrive at in front

of their customer’s house.”

The advance in technology is able to facilitate

online transportation access for disabled people.

According to a survey on disability workers at the

Center for Independent Living in California, “54

percent of people with disabilities have used

assistive technology” (Yeager et al., 2006 in Brown

et al., 2015). The use of smartphones with a screen

reader program for people with visual impairment

help blind therapists to access online transportation.

Moreover, Budianto also explained that the

efficiency in terms of time could make the therapist

capable of serving more customers. He further said

that “before there was online transportation the time

to serve more customers was insufficient because it

took a long time to arrive in other areas. The public

transport in Indonesia is not always easy to find and

the system still not integrated which very consuming

time and energy on the road. Now, with the online

transportation we can receive two to three more calls

a day", said Budianto.

The Role of Online Transportation in Supporting the Mobility of Therapists with Visual Impairment in Surabaya

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4 CONCLUSION

It can be concluded that the presence of online

transportation can be a solution to the mobility

problems of blind therapists. The efficiency in time

and effort and the accessibility of the technology are

important reasons for people with disabilities to

choose online transport as their primary mobility

support in performing their daily professional tasks.

However, this research is still in the process of

development. Therefore, there are still many

shortcomings, and it also requires a lot of input from

various parties.

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