Talk by Emily Nash, Coventry University, at Conference 2025

Emily Nash is currently completing a PhD in improving access to train travel for people with sight loss. Her research is looking to identify and understand what barriers currently exist, and find solutions to overcome them. In this talk, she explains how interviews and a usability study are helping achieve this.

Emily lives in South Wales with her two children and they all have aniridia. She has been a member of Aniridia Network since 2015 and was a Trustee when she first joined. She also gave a presentation at the 2023 conference about her lived experience and the plans for her research.

Emily Nash on LinkedIn

Transcript

[James] Let’s move on now. We’ve got another presentation from another person with aniridia. I’d like to welcome Emily Nash to talk about train station maps for visually impaired people.

[Emily] Okay great, yeah. So I’m just going to talk now for the next 10 minutes just about the work that I’m doing, currently as a PhD student at Coventry University, in research supported by the Motability Foundation in Coventry University, looking at accessibility on our public transport and in particular on rail travel.

So the picture here is just of Paddington station. There’s a lovely little picture of Paddington just on Platform 1 there.

So just the overview of my presentation. I’ll give a bit of an introduction to myself. I will just talk about my PhD focus and a bit of a whistle-stop tour of some of my results. I’ll then just talk a bit wider, just what’s happening really in terms of accessibility on public transport, because it’s definitely a topic that is certainly being highlighted and discussed in Westminster. So we’ll just touch on that and then where I hope things will be going really.

Just as a bit of an introduction to myself. I know I definitely know some people on this call, but for anyone who doesn’t know me, I do have aniridia. I also have two children, who are in this picture as well, who are 8 and 11, who also have aniridia. And I also have my golden Labrador guide dog Kelly, who’s just sitting in between us on a train.

So I think my interest really in the area of transport has just stemmed from all of us really, just having that reliance, and we know it’s that connecting bit really to allow us to… whether it’s get to healthcare, school, education or social events really, that us being actually being able to use public transport is a real must really. But people’s experiences so far are just quite varied really, in terms of positive and negative experiences.

So in terms of what I’m doing, I am just coming to the end of my third year now as a postgraduate researcher. As I explained there, the support for the PhD has come from the Motability Foundation, who is doing quite a bit of work in this space, looking at accessibility for the wide variety of disabled people, and again all types of transport. So everything from walking and cycling, all the way through to our more structured networks of buses and trains.

What I was really hoping to do I think is two things really, just trying to establish the current experiences and that’s throughout the UK. So there’s been some smaller projects done either in London or Scotland, but really understanding common experiences in the current world, particularly post-Covid, as our transport systems are just becoming busier and more stretched.

And then looking really at how we can support people with visual impairment to just be more independent in their travel. So I know there are things like Passenger Assist, but I think there’s a real desire for people to be doing as much as they can themselves, which then gives them the flexibility really to travel as and when we want, rather than rely on a booked service that, as we know, has challenges as well in terms of its reliability.

So I’ve completed two interview studies, one with people with a visual impairment, across a variety of ages and locations and types of sight loss. So I interviewed 29 participants, about 18 months ago now. Following that I then spoke to professionals working in the area, so people working in charities or social services or in the rail operators, who really understand how individuals with sight loss are just being supported within the public transport area really, and making journeys independently.

And I’ve just come to the end of a usability study now, just looking at different types of station maps and information, and how people with visual impairment use those, and how they may actually assist us in travel and when we’re arriving at stations, and particularly those routes or those areas which are unfamiliar or changing for people. So this is a bit of a whistle-stop tour of some of the results I found, so sorry it’s a bit brief.

From the interview studies, and some of these bits won’t come really as a great surprise, there is a need just to understand the spectrum of visual impairment, and the different complexities that people struggle with really. So for some people, judging that gap is the difficult bit, for other people it’s seeing the signage, for other people it’s dealing with the crowds and the busyness really. So just understanding all the different complexities.

I think it would be nice if the simple answer was to have that consistency, and certainly there are moves to try and standardise what’s being done in the rail industry. You’ve got the Great British Railways being created, which will hopefully begin to assist with that. Because I think one of the challenges is definitely as you move across the country and you change between rail operators, they all manage and do things quite separately, and I think that’s exaggerated in the support they provide disabled people.

And then also just really understanding what support people with visual impairment want within a transport setting. I think of all the people I spoke to – and that’s on both sides, that’s both patients and those working with people with sight loss – real acknowledgement that quite often support, maybe around like white cane skills or a specific part of technology, but actually putting that together within the complex environment of station hubs and bus travel, you’re quite lucky if you receive that kind of support really.

So it does exist and there are some really good examples. But it’s certainly not consistently being delivered to people, which is really limiting their confidence really, and their belief and independence to do that.

So, as I said, the recent usability study I looked at was looking at maps that are actually available on rail operators’ websites. So when people look for station information, they tend to go to National Rail Enquiries, where there are just 2D maps, so a little bit similar.

So there’s two pictures on this slide. One on the right hand side, which is a 2D representation of a map, a little bit similar to what you might see on National Rail Enquiries. On the left is a much more interactive platform, where you actually see the front of the station, what it looks like, you can actually walk through the station, you can see what the ticket office looks like, you can see what the platforms look like. And there’s also actually a guided route planner which if you put in there that you want to go to platform 2, it takes you through the station and the route you need to follow, and where the lift is and where the stairs take you down.

Unfortunately these maps have been developed but are quite often buried in train operators’ websites. So of my 28 participants, no one actually knew they existed or where to find them. But there is definitely acknowledgement that having some idea of what a station could look like, of a route that might be needed within a station, would definitely be a benefit before travelling, and help some of that anxiety and planning and access to information.

So my study just looked at how easy it was to use some of these platforms, particularly with things like Voiceover, but also what information was actually critical to help people. I think it’s quite easy to add things, and there was certainly another site where there was a lot of visual information – it told you where all the trees were, but actually it’s not really important where the trees are. You actually just want to know where the signs might be or where the barriers might be, and so it’s just getting the right type of information.

So just to let people know, I don’t know how much people are aware that also at Coventry University there’s the National Centre for Accessible Transport, which is a group that’s been set up and funded by the Motability Foundation to look at a wide variety of issues within transport. So I was lucky to join when this was just starting.

So two years on, this is a bit of an outdated picture of us all actually at NCAT, but it’s the only one with me in really. But it very much came from the research that had been done, showing that experiences of disabled people, that there was a big gap, with disabled people making significantly less journeys than those non-disabled counterparts, and this really isn’t changing.

So there is definitely movement now to understand the different challenges and the different potential solutions that could help, and as I said earlier really, just in the complex area and actually the complexity of the support that’s required for us in order to do wayfinding and learn routes within this area.

So for anybody who’s not particularly familiar with NCAT, just to let you know some of the wider things that are happening, both in Coventry but wider really.

They do currently have funding applications open in order to address some of the issues and challenges that have been identified, which is great. And that’s smaller projects just to be initiated and actually trialled to see if solutions can help. It’s a lot more embedded in NCAT and they’re beginning to run these projects and publish their results. So they’ve just recently appointed a new CEO, which is just another step in its development really of NCAT.

Some other current things that they’re looking at is the complaint handling, because quite often a lot of the feedback was it doesn’t really feel as though the comments or the feedback are going anywhere. And quite often actually people don’t necessarily want to complain, it’s about that feedback loop and being part of the discussion really, being part of the table as to what could help and what would actually be of benefit to people.

As I said at the very beginning, there are discussions definitely in Westminster now around accessible transport, and Tanni Grey-Thompson’s been a big advocate for that.

And there is now an Accessible Transport Policy Commission, who have just issued a strategy document called Joined Up Policies and Joined Up Journeys, which has had a real focus really on the four nations – so Wales, Scotland and North Ireland and England – and really looking at individuals, where they are in those journeys of providing accessibility accommodations and support. and just providing a roadmap really for the next five years as to how they can do it in a collaborative way, but bring them all up to the same spec.

And then just for anybody who’s not aware, the NCAT panel does exist, so that people can get involved in research. You can sign up and they’ll send out requests for people to perhaps answer online surveys or get involved in focus groups. And that’s on the website, on the NCAT panel.

So just a little bit of summary really, this picture on this slide is just of me and my guide dog Kelly in Westminster Hall. So I was lucky enough to go for some training at Westminster at the beginning of the year, and be involved that I could provide submission when they were calling for ideas around joined up travel in the UK. So I was able to join up there.

So really for me the next steps are I need to write up my PhD, now that I’ve actually done it, so look out for that in the next six months. So hopefully I’ll be finishing that. It’s also allowed me to get involved now in the accessibility panel of Transport for Wales and the wider kinds of access for all transport in Wales, which is great. I’m going to an R&IB workshop next week as well, which is about future travel and what that might look like.

So I think the summary for me really is there’s quite a lot going on now in this space, and certainly NCAT and the NCAT panel is the place to go and find out more if you’d like to.

So my last slide is just some contact details for me if you’d like to know anything more about my research, or if I can point you in the direction, and look on the NCAT website. And I’m done.

[James] Thank you very much Emily, right on time. It’s wonderful to hear that someone like you, with Aniridia in particular, is involved in such important work as this.

One of the things that I encountered the other day, I was looking up at a digital destination board on a train platform, trying to see when the next train was coming. Unfortunately I was therefore looking upwards and the glass station roof was right above and the sun happened to be there as well. So although I could actually see the destination board, I couldn’t see anything because the sun was so bright shining behind it.

[Emily] So many examples. But yeah, one thing I probably didn’t really mention was to be selected actually to do the PhD, we all needed to have a lived experience of a disability.

And I think one of the big drivers of the research at the moment is that it’s being done and being conducted with people who have their lived experience, and that’s quite a big shift to get us all involved. And unfortunately it won’t really surprise people there’s obviously been quite a lot of challenges around that, and I could probably do another talk really on my challenges in terms of higher education and access in higher education.

But yeah, definitely a key bit really is that the users are involved and the people that have experience are involved in this research, and driving really what the solutions and answers are.

[James] Yeah, totally. So thanks very much Emily for that.