Mind the Gap: Addressing Inaccessibility on the London Underground

160 years ago the London Underground was opened for the first time, but despite the plethora of technological advancements since seen, it remains stuck in the past concerning the inaccessibility across the public transport network. This paper explores the Disabled user experience of the London Underground, exploring how permanent, temporary, and situational disability amongst other factors, impair the travel experience for vulnerable individuals. Additionally, it outlines an evaluation of how far existing journey-planning applications attempt to tackle the accessibility gap across the London Underground, detailing how and where they leave much to be desired. To address this challenge, this paper introduces a solution in the form of a web application hosted on AWS using Express/ReactJS. This solution aims to tackle the issue of decentralised accessibility information within the domain of journey planning mobile applications. Additionally, the paper includes an evaluation of the application, “trouble-free travel.” Finally, it offers some points of future development for the evolution of the application.