Tag: Accessibility

Celebrating South Asian Heritage Month

South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM) started in 2020 and runs every year from 18th July – 17th of August. SAHM is an opportunity to celebrate South Asian history, culture, and communities. The term ‘South Asian’ was introduced in the ’80s to encompass people with roots in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Understanding culture through the power of story-telling allows a chance to explore the South Asian community and identity in the 21st century whilst reflecting back on historical movements that shape South Asian Heritage.

Celebrations at Transreport

This month at Transreport, to celebrate South Asian Heritage Month, we dedicated our Diversity and Inclusion Forum which takes place with all colleagues on the last Friday of every month.

Our Diversity and Inclusion Forum launched last month in July where we covered Pride and looked at LGBTQ+ rights across the globe followed by some discussions about how we can support colleagues and be an ally within the workplace. At Transreport, 25% of our colleagues have shared that they are South Asian so we always knew that this would be an exciting time for internal celebrations and we wanted to join in with the 2023 theme of ‘Stories to Tell’.

‘Stories to Tell’

On Friday 28th July we had the privilege of hearing from one of our QA Engineers Shilpa Awasthi who shared her story for the 2023 theme ‘Stories to Tell’.

Shilpa shared with us photographs and stories of finding a community of like-minded people when moving to the UK and discussed how she celebrates a range of festivals with friends. A popular point of discussion was around South Asian food and culinary influences! When asked why she thought it was important to celebrate South Asian Heritage Month Shilpa said:

‘to better understand one another, I thought South Asian Heritage Month was very important, considering I am South Asian myself. Having this opportunity to get to know each other better made me happy to be involved.’

A huge thank you to Shilpa for sharing her story with us.

If you have any stories that you’d like to share with us then please do get in touch with us through our social channels, we’d love to hear from you!

Transreport are flying

In February our Accessibility and Inclusion Manager Emma took part in a ‘Try Before You Fly’ session at East Midlands Airport to explore the support that can be offered when flying with her assistance dog, Luna. Emma said: ‘it was great to see that East Midlands Airport have a proactive approach to accessibility. I was particularly excited by the airside grass spending areas for Luna!’ 

Here’s what East Midlands Airport have to say about their sessions, to find out more visit their website: https://www.eastmidlandsairport.com/help/special-assistance/before-you-travel/  

‘If you require some familiarisation with our airport ahead of travel, our Assisted Travel Team proudly operates a select number of Try Before You Fly events each year. Our Try Before You Fly tours are popular with (but not limited to) customers with autism or neurodivergence, or newly disabled people unfamiliar with our assistance and equipment. Each tour is personalised to your individual requirements.’ 

Emma is standing in the middle of an empty aircraft with red and grey seats on either side of her. Luna assistance dog is sitting in her red and yellow vest while Emma holds her yellow lead with black writing ‘Assistance Dog’. Emma is looking at the camera with her arm on top of one of the seats next to her.   
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Emma is standing in the middle of an empty aircraft with red and grey seats on either side of her. Luna assistance dog is sitting in her red and yellow vest while Emma holds her yellow lead with black writing that reads ‘Assistance Dog’. Emma is looking at the camera with her arm on top of one of the seats next to her. 

Transreport Take On Aviation 

As a leading technology company centred around accessibility, we take great pride in our deep understanding of the barriers to accessible travel. We actively engage with disabled people, listening to their first-hand experiences with rail and air travel. By collaborating with industry experts and incorporating these valuable insights, we have developed tailor-made solutions that enhance accessibility and improve the overall travel experience for disabled and older passengers.

We host regular rail and aviation accessibility panels where disabled people ranging from campaigners, activists and high-profile spokespeople are paid for their time as they share their insights and experiences into travel. This enables us to understand the barriers to accessible travel more and to receive ongoing feedback about our products aligned to the experiences people are having within rail and aviation. 

It is paramount that we understand the barriers to accessible travel and aviation is no exception in order for us to create bespoke solutions for organisations to improve their assistance processes resulting in improved customer satisfaction, increased profits and staff morale as processes are streamlined and effective for both disabled and older people, and staff alike.  

As part of our commitment to promoting accessibility in air travel, we provide complimentary airport accessibility audits. These access audits are specifically designed to help airports review their accessibility management and culture in a structured and systematic manner.

Our team of experts will conduct a detailed evaluation of your facilities, services, and processes, identifying any areas that may present challenges for disabled and older people. We will then provide a comprehensive report that includes practical recommendations and solutions for removing barriers and creating accessible solutions. This continuous path of improvement empowers airports to make necessary adjustments and enhance their accessibility initiatives.

See our accessibility audit page for more information and book your free audit today.

Meet Our Accessibility And Inclusion Manager; Emma Partlow

Introducing Transreport’s Accessibility and Inclusion Manager Emma Partlow. She is an experienced researcher, and teacher and advocates for Equality, Diversity, and Human Rights. Emma can often be found travelling nationwide with Luna her assistance dog and will be hosting a seminar at Naidex on 22nd March where she will draw upon her own lived experiences of navigating rail and aviation travel with Luna.

I specialise in accessibility and inclusion through my own lived experiences of being disabled and ten years of research into the lived experiences of disabled people with a focus on legislative and policy impact. I will shortly be Dr Partlow and continue to publish within this area.

I have experience working within the railway industry specialising in accessibility and previously have undertaken a range of roles and research projects that focus specifically on inclusion and diversity.  

1 in 5 people in the UK is disabled, yet in 2023 there remain huge barriers that disabled people are facing. The disability employment rate in 2021 was 52.7%, compared to 81.0% for non-disabled people so a gap is present. Throughout my own research, I have developed a critical eye for employment issues and I’m mindful that organisations often want to employ disabled people in order to ‘add’ diversity to their organisations when the reality is more complex.

When I spotted an advert for my role at Transreport that stated within the advert that ‘lived experience’ and ‘an understanding of the Social Model of disability’ was desired I knew that Transreport prioritise accessibility and inclusion and it was clear that this was an organisation I could enter proud of my identity as a disabled person.

As a user of Transreport’s flagship product, Passenger Assistance, I was aware of the difference it is making for disabled and older people using public transport. However, as I learnt more about the company’s inception and mission it was evident that inclusion and accessibility are the founding principles of every conversation, decision and action the team makes. 

I quickly knew I wanted to join and contribute to leading the organisation on its journey. Not only because of their contributions to accessibility and inclusivity but because of how they reflected this ethos throughout their organisation and workplace and what this means as a disabled employee.

For example, Transreport prioritises flexible and remote working. For me, this is a game-changer. I love travelling by train and it is beyond empowering knowing that because of the Passenger Assistance app, I can turn up at a station and receive the accessibility support I need. However, as a disabled person who faces chronic fatigue, having the choice to not commute every single day means that I am a better employee who is more productive. It also means that I have energy left for arguably the most important things in life, like reading a bedtime story with my daughter at the end of the day or spending time with my husband, friends, and family. In turn, this means when I am at work I am engaged and motivated because of the work-life balance it creates.

We’ve been nominated for a Scope Disability Equality award!

Every year, Scope runs the ‘Scope Disability Equality awards’ where they “recognise and celebrate the achievements of people who; campaign for disability equality and bring about social change”. There are various categories with nominees such as ‘media moment’ which is an award that recognises a moment involving disabled people that really had a powerful impact on encouraging disability equality, and ‘young campaigner’ which is aimed at recognising a young disabled person who is speaking out and taking action on issues that they believe in, and many more categories. 

Here at Transreport, we are so thrilled to announce that this year, the Passenger Assistance app has been nominated under ‘Accessible Organisation’. As a company that has aimed to create an app that works to simplify travel for disabled people, giving more spontaneity and making booking rail assistance easier, we are incredibly proud that this work is being acknowledged alongside so many other great companies such as AccessAble and Nimbus Disability: The Access Card. 

Companies such as AccessAble are huge in the disability/accessibility world! Their app allows disabled people to research any accessibility information on locations and venues beforehand and assess whether it is accessible enough. Every venue has been checked in person by a trained surveyor. Another company nominated under the same category as us is Nimbus Disability, another great app for disabled people. The Access Card is used by more than 30,000 disabled people at major UK venues such as Alton towers and Buckingham palace. You can see the full list of nominees on the Scope website! 

Judging for the awards takes place throughout the 18th-22nd of July and although not all the categories are open for public voting, we wanted to share the great news with all of our app users!

The judges this year are a range of high-profile disabled people with a range of expertise and each are in charge of judging their own categories. For example, Samantha Renke is an actress, presenter and disability rights campaigner and is judging the ‘Accessible Organisation’ and ‘Young Campaigner’ categories. Another judge on this year’s panel is Dan Edge, a performer and activist and is judging the ‘Campaign’ and ‘Role model’ categories. There are over 15 judges and 9 categories this year, all with very deserving nominees! The winners are expected to be announced this Autumn so we’re super excited to find out the results and share it with you all.