Integrating meeting, assistance and boarding points with digital rail station maps

Passengers with accessibility requirements can seek help from rail staff using a function called _Passenger Assist._ They must meet staff at dedicated, accessible, _Meeting Points._ When using an unfamiliar station, finding where these Meeting Points are is difficult for customers. They are not included on station maps and other information about their location is practically invisible to the public. Furthermore, operator staff cannot update Meeting Point locations, nor can they publish that location to an accessible digital map. Disruption often requires them to do exactly that.

Furthermore, Meeting Points only apply to staffed stations. Rail organisations want to implement dedicated _Assistance Points_ for passengers to request help from station staff or mobile teams and _Boarding Points_ at platforms. Passengers requiring assistance at unstaffed or part-time staffed stations may use an assistance point to request help getting to the platform, from a mobile team if available. Alternatively, they may make their own way to the platform and use a boarding point to alert on-train staff on the appropriate service that they require assistance. Passengers needing assistance should always be at a dedicated, static boarding point, which on-train staff will check before departing. When passengers needing assistance must use unfamiliar stations during disruption, there is thus less chance of them being left on the platform.

Whoosh will develop a new API for Meeting Point locations and integrate this into digital accessible maps. This will make it easy for passengers to find Meeting, Assistance and Boarding Points and for the industry to keep those locations up to date. When a user finds a meeting, assistance or boarding point, they will be able to check in and share their location by scanning a QR code.