For people with disabilities, travelling from A to B can be an anxiety-inducing experience. Social media feeds tell horror stories of people being abandoned on trains. Information can sometimes be inaccessible – such as the time when National Rail changed its website to black and white to mark Prince Philip’s death, making it unusable for those with visual impairments.
While figures published by the Department for Transport state that 99% of buses are accessible and 92% of trains, this is not always reflected in the lived experiences of those with disabilities.
“A lot of solutions in the transport industry can be described as being accessible on paper but actually the journey can still be very difficult and stress-inducing,” says Katie Pennick, campaigns lead for Transport for All, a pan-impairment campaign organisation aiming to improve the accessibility of London’s transport network.