10087409AccessRail- empowering the untapped market of disabled rail passengers to travel independentlyClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe unknown status and location of features such as lifts and accessible toilets impacts the confidence to travel of both the elderly and passengers with accessibility needs. Whoosh media have established themselves as market pioneers in providing Personalised Real Time Information (PRTI) for passenger journeys. During development and deployments of our PRTI system, key failings in meeting needs of rail users that require accessibility options were abundantly apparent. The lack of accurate, reliable information on both train and station access dissuades many disabled people from using a key form of transport. Failings of accessibility cause irreparable reputational and significant financial damage such as the high profile case of Paralympian Wafula Strike's experience attempting to find an accessible toilet in 2016\. The unknown status and location of necessary facilities significantly impacts the confidence to travel of both the elderly and passengers with accessibility needs. The Whoosh-developed AccessRail system will be a a new vital tool designed to 1) enable independent travel for those with access needs, and 2) be used as a tool to manage key elements of train and station function maintenance. This intelligent, interactive rail journey planner will adaptively meet access needs of customers, utilising real time information to best fit a travellers needs to their intended journey. Both staff and passengers will be able to easily update a live database containing the location and status of access provisions via _Whoosh's_ QR code platform. Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT) support this proposal by giving access to data from a station audit commissioned by the DfT. This generated significant data on station assets. Whoosh's proposal will for the first time exploit this data set and make it available to customers. The tool will allow for passengers and staff alike to see the status of any and all access provisions on a journey. It will help them adjust routes planned to meet the needs of an individual passenger. Critically, it will improve the travel experience of an underrepresented group.