From the University of Washington:
While many individuals use Google Maps and other navigation tools to plan their rail transit trips across a city, these apps and web sites often lack vital details about how accessible a particular station is. That’s an issue for individuals who use the elevators, including those with mobility disabilities, pregnant people and commuters with heavy equipment resembling suitcases or bicycles.
Researchers on the University of Washington developed UnlockedMaps, a web-based map that enables users to see in real time how accessible rail transit stations are in six metro areas: Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, Latest York and the California Bay Area. UnlockedMaps shows which stations are accessible and which of them are experiencing elevator outages. The team collected elevator outage data from greater than 2,300 transit stations over the past two years to construct the system.
The researchers will present these findings Oct. 24 on the ASSETS 2022 Conference on Computers and Accessibility.
Learn More, Read an Interview with a Member of the UnlockedMaps Team
Filed under: Data Files, Interviews, Maps, News, Patrons and Users, Profiles
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, author, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based within the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Yr from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary can also be the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
