Implementing and Iterating WeWALK’s Agent-Based Guidance System (WeASSIST) in Rail Transport to Improve Visually Impaired Customer Experience

There are over 2-million Visually Impaired Individuals(VIIs) in the UK(AgeUK\_2015); globally estimated at 253-million(Ackland\_et\_al\_2017). As populations age, this will increase as sight-loss disproportionally impacts older people. VIIs benefit from the white cane to get around, often in conjunction with smartphone navigation apps. However, this only detects obstacles below knee-height within approximately 1m of the user. Most smartphone interfaces are inaccessible, limiting their usefulness. This makes it challenging for VIIs to safely navigate busy urban areas, particularly railway environments requiring mission-critical navigation and hazard-awareness in limited GPS-availability.

To address this challenge, WeWALK have developed a revolutionary "smart" device that screws onto a user's existing cane. It detects obstacles at knee-to-head height and uniquely connects to a user's smartphone to provide audio-based navigation via integration with Google Maps, Moovit, and Microsoft services. Efforts to enhance WeWALK's indoor capabilities resulted in the creation of a new service, WeASSIST. Using a smartphone's camera, WeASSIST connects VIIs with trained agents through video-feed. Supplemented by WeWALK's positioning technology and ease-of-use, agents guide users through any environment, providing personalised descriptions at the user's request. This project will implement WeASSIST in a railway environment, solving last-mile problems where VIIs fail to locate their destination/transport route, creating a comprehensive, safety-critical, and accessible navigation system.

WeASSIST is in constant development and can integrate computer-vision for object-recognition and mapping. However, this has not yet been demonstrated with adequate system performance (accuracy/reliability/usability) for rail applications.

Partnering with RNIB, we will address the technical/safety challenges preventing widespread uptake of agent-based guidance systems in railway environments. We will build on existing WeWALK/WeASSIST architectures with new software to provide safety-critical functionality to railway operators/customers. This project can play a vital role in ensuring the rising numbers of visually impaired people have full access to rail travel while improving staff availability and customer experience.