Innovation case studies

ncat’s Scaling Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Connected Places Catapult, is a multi-million-pound programme connecting evidence, lived experience and industry partners to support the development, testing and scaling of accessible transport solutions.⁵⁸ The projects below have all been funded through the programme, ranging from accessible information and passenger confidence to transport planning and decision-making. Together, they illustrate how evidence, lived experience and industry collaboration can accelerate the development and adoption of accessible transport solutions.

Measuring bus stop accessibility

Podaris is leading the development of EQuAL (Equity and Quality in Accessibility Levels), an open metric that better reflects disabled people’s experiences of reaching and using public transport. The project is a partnership with the University of Liverpool, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and Translink, guided by an advisory group of disabled people’s and passenger organisations. Existing measures such as PTAL (Public Transport Accessibility Level) focus mainly on walking distance to services and how often they run. EQuAL considers a much wider range of factors that affect whether a journey is accessible in practice, such as pavement quality, crossing points, tactile paving, bus stop infrastructure, vehicle accessibility and the wider street environment. It is available so that any transport authority can adopt it, supporting better-informed investment decisions and stronger business cases for accessibility improvements.⁵⁹ By prioritising bus stops with a high PTAL but low EQuAL score for improvements, local authorities can open up opportunity for disabled people to access high frequency services, providing a higher return on investment.

React Trigger System

React Accessibility is developing a passenger-to-driver communication feature for bus stops, enabling blind, partially sighted or other disabled passengers to automatically request their bus to stop, making boarding and onward travel easier.⁶⁰ It uses bus open data to match real-time vehicle allocation to a passenger’s desired service and making a ‘request to stop’ to the bus driver via the vehicle’s ticket machine.

Passengers can request both a boarding and alighting stop and optionally share an accessibility need with the bus driver. The initial passenger interface is through the React app. React beacons automatically activate the app and send audio-visual notifications when the passenger approaches the bus stop and when the bus arrives. Where supported, passengers can automatically or manually trigger public audio announcements from at-stop displays. React are currently conducting operational trials in a number of areas.

Modular retrofit bus stop accessibility kit

Mechara Technologies are developing a Predictable Stop Kit – a modular, low-cost retrofit system for public transport stops. The kit provides real-time travel information in multiple accessible formats: a high-contrast e-ink display, audio announcements (with ambient noise adjustment), an audio induction loop, Bluetooth to headphones and hearing aids, a braille stop code and a push button enhancing information and communication options. It is co-designed with people with lived experience of impairments, including blind and partially sighted, d/Deaf and neurodivergent passengers, and works for everyone else too.⁶¹

References

58. ncat (no date), Scaling Innovation (back to text)

59. ncat (no date), Making Accessibility Count in Transport Planning (back to text)

60. React Accessibility (no date), Passenger-to-Driver Communication; ncat (no date), Improving Bus Travel Through Interactive Information Exchange (back to text)

61. Mechara Technologies (no date), The Predictable Stop Kit (back to text)