UnlockedMaps: A Web-Based Map for Visualizing the Real-Time Accessibility of Urban Rail Transit Stations
Ather Sharif, Aneesha Ramesh, Qianqian Yu, Trung-Anh H. Nguyen, Xuhai Xu · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A) · doi:10.1145/3587281.3587960
Summary
This paper presents UnlockedMaps, an open-data web-based map that visualizes the real-time accessibility status of urban rail transit stations across six North American cities. The system addresses a critical gap: commuters who depend on functioning station elevators — including wheelchair users, pregnant people, cyclists with heavy equipment, and stroller users — have no existing tool to check whether their transit stations are currently accessible before starting their journey. While some transit authorities post active elevator outage notices on their websites, none provide historical outage data, limiting public transparency into the reliability of station accessibility and hindering disability advocates from driving policy change. The research began with formative interviews across five stakeholder groups: people with mobility disabilities, pregnant people, cyclists and stroller users, disability advocates, and civic hackers. These interviews informed the design of UnlockedMaps, which classifies each station into one of three real-time statuses: accessible (all elevators functioning), experiencing at least one elevator outage, or not accessible. The system collects data by scraping transit authority websites — station data quarterly and elevator outage data hourly. Over approximately 28 months, the automated script recorded over one million elevator outage events across 2,336 stations. All data is made publicly available through two API endpoints for stations and outages.
Key findings
UnlockedMaps offers a map page with filtering by station name, wheelchair accessibility, bike rack availability, parking availability, and transit line/authority, along with individual station pages showing elevator outage history and nearby accessible restaurants and restrooms. The restaurant data comes from the Yelp API filtered for wheelchair accessibility, and restroom data from the Refuge Restrooms API filtered for ADA compliance. Users can set a search radius between 0.5 and 2 miles for nearby amenities. The website follows WCAG 2.1 guidelines with at least 3:1 contrast ratios, icons alongside text to support users with alexia, and Color Vision Deficiency-friendly color choices. Evaluation through exploratory user studies, controlled and in-the-wild longitudinal studies, and follow-up interviews with all five stakeholder groups showed that participants found UnlockedMaps user-friendly and beneficial. Notably, participants appreciated the transparency into historical elevator outage data and described the tool as a "for-us-by-us" solution — one that benefits all stakeholder groups, including those who do not strictly rely on functioning elevators.
Relevance
UnlockedMaps highlights a frequently overlooked dimension of accessibility: the gap between a transit station being theoretically accessible (having elevators) and practically accessible (elevators actually working). For accessibility practitioners, this research demonstrates the value of real-time accessibility status information and historical reliability data in empowering disabled commuters to make informed decisions. The open-data approach — making elevator outage records publicly available via API — creates a model for transparency that transit authorities and civic technology organizations could adopt. The inclusive stakeholder engagement, spanning mobility disability users through civic hackers, exemplifies participatory design that centers disabled people while recognizing that accessibility improvements benefit a broader population. The project also shows how web accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1) can be applied to mapping tools, an area where many commercial solutions fall short.
Tags: transit accessibility · mobility disabilities · open data · web-based maps · urban accessibility · elevator outages · participatory design
Standards referenced: WCAG 2.1 · ADA