Tech from London is helping people with disabilities use DC public transit

A global accessibility tech company and DC’s transit system are expanding access to an app for visually impaired people to better traverse local rail and bus stations. 

Following a multi-year pilot program at select Metro stations, the London-headquartered accessibility tech company Waymap will now see its AI-driven navigation tool used across Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) network. That includes 98 rail stations and 325 bus routes, plus the respective bus stations. 

The firm has tested the tech at stations like Silver Spring, Brookland and Braddock Road since 2022. What sets the company apart is how it pulls information to direct people: The app uses sensors built into smartphones, feeding raw data into AI algorithms to determine step length and direction and provide audio instructions. It does not rely on GPS or the internet, according to Waymap president and founder Tom Pey. 

“If your cell provider or you lost contact with the internet, then you didn’t get lost,” said Pey, who became visually impaired at 39, “which would be the case with most other applications.”

This isn’t “fancy technology,” CEO Celso Zuccollo said, but it still provides users with detailed instructions within three feet of accuracy. For example, it’ll instruct them how to get to the platform to catch a train and guide them toward the most efficient exit to take.

“When you walk into a train station, when you go 50 meters underground and you’ve got masses of concrete above you,” Zuccollo told Technical.ly, “where GPS just doesn’t work, Waymap continues to follow you around — because we aren’t using anything but your own steps to measure your position.”

The technology attracted significant attention from investors, with Waymap raising $10.75 million USD since its founding in 2017. 

This work takes place under pro bono partnership that began in 2021 and at no cost to WMATA, per Sarah Meyer, the chief experience and engagement officer. Waymap leaders declined to talk about the details of the deal. 

Although DC isn’t the first place to employ the tech, this marks the first time the tech’s been used across an entire transit system. Waymap is also employed at Union Station in Los Angeles, the British Liverpool One mall and a train station in Madrid.  

Why a UK company nabbed a DC contract 

Pey and his team at Waymap met WMATA representatives at the digital accessibility conference M-Enabling Summit in Arlington in 2021. 

Waymap staff presented its technology at the conference, and the coordination with WMATA started from there, per Pey. He’s additionally been collaborating with the Accessibility Advisory Committee at WMATA. 

“We also worked with a large number of charities for disabled people in the DC area and nationally, to make sure that we were getting the right experience in place for the right people,” he said. 

WMATA chose to work with Waymap rather than a local firm because of its unique technology, said Christine Detz, a spokesperson for WMATA. The level of accuracy is especially important because of the amount of elevators and escalators, they noted. WMATA claims more elevators and escalators than any other transit system in North America, with 278 and 618, respectively. 

“The WMATA system, and its intricate layouts, presented unique wayfinding challenges in which Waymap’s technology and approach addressed,” Detz wrote to Technical.ly, adding: “Equitable access to public transportation is a challenge for systems around the globe. We believe that this partnership serves [a]s a model for other systems to leverage technological advances as a means of improving accessibility [and] wayfinding in a way that improves the customer experience.”

Waymap CEO Zuccollo sees this partnership as the beginning of expansion to other parts of DC, and hopes to eventually see it used in sports stadiums, museums and hospitals. 

Why DC? Because it’s “the center of the world,” said Pey. 

The accessibility movement is also well-known in the region, in part because of the city’s proximity to policymaking, he said. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was influential across the world, especially to Pey, even if it’s been violated in the US since then. The UK passed similar legislation in 1995, though it was slow to roll out. 

“America was the country that made disability rights available for me,” Pey said, who was born in Ireland and later moved to the UK. 

How Waymap works and distinguishes itself

Waymap’s tech, which is available on the App Store and Google Play, takes information from tools like the gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer that measure positioning and ranges of motion. 

The tech is meant to be hands-free, which Pey and Zuccollo find unique, so users can be more aware of what’s going on around them. Headphones are encouraged, though Pey advises against noise-cancelling ones for safety reasons. He personally uses a cheap pair of over-the-ear headphones when he uses the app. 

Waymap focuses on “secondary mobility,” Pey explained. Primary mobility is all about safety, like using a cane or a guide dog. Secondary is more about getting from one place to another. 

Because the tech is AI-powered, the algorithms will get increasingly refined and improve as more people use it. Pey hopes people who are not visually impaired will use the app for this reason. 

“You can donate your steps to somebody who needs your help, and AI would capture that and put it together,” Pey said. “It’s a modern way of solving the problem.”