English
London: The 14 percent of Londoners who identify as disabled just got a boost for their public transport needs as Moovit, the world’s leading transit app, today announced the most comprehensive route planning service for people with restricted mobility.
The accessibility feature, which Moovit Vice President of Product Yovav Meydad announced at this year’s Transport for London (TfL) Digital Partners – Accessibility Summit, adds to other industry-leading features the company has implemented on its app to help travellers with disabilities. Last year the company added comprehensive VoiceOver / TalkBack support for the visually impaired, which provides clear voice directions including get off alerts. Earlier this year Moovit introduced larger buttons strategically placed on the app’s bottom bar to assist users with limited motoric skills.
Today’s announcement furthers Moovit’s industry-leading position of providing the right information to travellers with reduced mobility, such as step-free access routes from street level to the train and lift availability on the transport network. The data is being provided through Transport for London’s open-data feed, which powers over 600 apps to help people get around and plan their journeys around the Capital.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced in December that he will instigate the biggest increase to step-free access on the Underground in the network’s 153 year history by investing an additional £200m over the next five years. As part of the initiative TfL has committed to making more than 30 additional Tube stations step-free by 2021/22.
The move will bring the total number of stations with step-free access to all platforms to more than 100, representing more than 40 per cent of the Underground network. Thanks to the new features by Moovit, users of the app will be directed around the transport network in the most efficient way possible, getting travellers with restricted mobility from A to B using routes that are fully wheelchair accessible.
“Whether you’re visually-impaired, have restricted mobility or motoric issues, there should be no barriers to using public transport in 2017, and Moovit is working hard to ensure there are not,” said Meydad. “By incorporating these considerably important accessibility features, we are now be able to help even more users get around their city more smoothly.”
Rikesh Shah, Lead Digital Partnerships Manager at Transport for London, said, “Making travelling in London easier is core to delivering a transport network open to all. Giving our customers the information and tools they need to travel with confidence is key to helping us deliver this. We already provide a wide range of information for customers, and Moovit’s great new feature, which uses our dynamic open data, will help those with accessibility needs navigate our stations more easily, supporting our wider goal to provide accurate information directly to customers.”
