Learn about Transit's Accessibility Features

We know how important public transit is for individuals with disabilities. That's why we've made a conscious effort to make Transit accessible to and useful for everyone. We take feedback about these issues very seriously and use it to improve the app.

Visual accessibility

Screen readers & GO

Transit supports screen readers to allow blind and low vision users to navigate the app. With the VoiceOver screen reader on iOS and the TalkBack screen reader on Android, the user selects different elements of the screen by swiping left/right. When the desired option is read aloud, the user double-taps anywhere on the screen to select it.

Our GO feature can be very useful for blind and low vision riders traveling on a new line, as it provides spoken step-by-step instructions for a trip, including a reminder when the desired stop is coming up. Read about how GO works in our help center here: Get notifications about your trip with GO.

Colors and contrasts

Transit is a very colorful app. As we choose the colors to show in Transit, we ensure that all text meets WCAG 2.0 contrast standards.

We are also working to ensure that information in the app is communicated with a variety of visual indicators, such as logos, icons, and route names, not only color, to facilitate navigation by colorblind individuals.

Step-free access

To see what step-free options currently look like in Transit, take a look at this page from the app's help center: Enable Accessibility Information.

Stops & vehicles

To help riders with physical disabilities, Transit can display information about whether stops, stations, and vehicles are wheelchair accessible. This lets riders know whether the bus arriving at their stop can accommodate a wheelchair or stroller, for example, or whether the subway station has elevators. Transit's trip planner can also calculate step-free trips, prioritizing options that are accessible to riders in wheelchairs.

Include accessibility information in your dataset

To display accessibility information in the app, Transit uses the data provided in your GTFS. In particular, we consult the wheelchair_boarding field of stops.txt and the wheelchair_accessible field of trips.txt. These fields allow you to mark individual stops and trips as accessible.

Consult the full GTFS specification here: GTFS.org

If you are unable to modify this field in your GTFS, we can batch modify all your data to indicate whether all stops/all trips are accessible. For example, if you know that all your buses are wheelchair accessible, we can ensure that all trips appear as accessible in the app. Just contact us!