Accessibility information you can plan around
AccessVerified publishes accessibility data as measurements rather than labels, with a source and a date on every figure. We are early, we say what has not been checked on the ground, and we would rather be trusted than large.
To make the accessibility of a place a matter of record instead of a matter of enquiry. A disabled traveller planning a week away currently does the work of a researcher: telephoning venues, cross-reading access statements written years apart, studying street-level imagery to find out whether a kerb is dropped. None of that effort produces anything reusable, and the next traveller starts again from nothing. We think the answers belong in one comparable format, in several languages, with the evidence attached — so that planning a trip becomes a decision rather than a gamble.
Read the methodologyThe problem with accessibility information today
The information mostly exists. It is scattered across venue websites, operator PDFs, forum threads and blog posts, written to different standards, undated, and phrased so generally that it cannot be compared. The result is that a traveller can spend an evening researching a single day out and still not know whether they will get through the door. These are the four failures we see repeatedly.
Where the project actually stands
Being straightforward about this matters more than looking established. Essentially the whole dataset today is compiled: assembled from venues’ own accessibility statements, transport operators’ step-free data and other public documents, each recorded with its source and retrieval date, and labelled as not yet confirmed on the ground. On-site verification is the standard the protocol is built around and the capability we are building out now, venue by venue rather than all at once. Coverage begins with the cities disabled travellers ask about most and the places within them that receive the most visitors. When a profile has been measured in person, it will say so, and you will be able to tell the difference at a glance.
What we stand for
Where we are going
Bringing scattered published information into one structured format for the most-visited cities: the same attributes, the same thresholds, the same score calculation everywhere, with every figure carrying its source and retrieval date. This layer is useful immediately because it makes venues comparable for the first time, and it shows us exactly which figures are worth a visit to settle.
Training verifiers and working through the priority list, starting with the venues whose published claims are thinnest, most contradictory or clearly out of date. Verified profiles will sit alongside compiled ones with the difference marked plainly, and we intend to publish the share of each dataset that has been measured rather than leaving it implied.
Extending from individual places to the journeys between them, so a step-free route can be planned end to end rather than venue by venue. Alongside that, city-level coverage reporting for destinations and public bodies, and making the protocol and the structured data available for others to check, reuse and argue with.
Who this is for
Manual and powered wheelchair users have the least room for vagueness, because a threshold either clears the castors or it does not, and a lift either takes the chair or it does not. Much of the protocol exists to answer their questions in centimetres. But the same figures serve a much wider group, which is part of why measurement is the right unit: a gradient of 8% matters to a manual chair user, to someone walking with a stick, and to a parent with a heavy buggy, for related reasons.
Travellers with reduced mobility and older travellers often need something the accessibility icon never covers: how far it is from the step-free station, whether there is seating in the queue, how long the walk between two galleries actually is, whether the accessible toilet is on the floor they will be on. Fatigue and distance are accessibility questions, and they show up in our records as metres and gradients rather than as reassurances.
Sensory and cognitive needs are recorded in the same profile, because a level building with an unbearable acoustic is not accessible. Quiet hours, sensory maps, low-stimulus rooms, induction loops, captioning, tactile wayfinding and staff training all appear as attributes. Families with buggies and carers travelling alongside a disabled companion use the same data for different reasons — which is why we publish the whole list rather than a single verdict.
Why an .org
The domain is a commitment about incentives. A site funded by clicks through to bookings has a quiet reason to be encouraging, and a site funded by the venues it rates has an obvious one. Both pressures act slowly and invisibly, softening a phrase here and burying a finding there, and the reader has no way to see it happening. We would rather remove the pressure than promise to resist it.
So the structure is deliberately plain. Audits and reports are paid work with a fixed fee and no influence over any score. Scores, rankings and placement are not for sale, findings are published as recorded, and there is no advertising, no sponsored profile presented as editorial and no engagement metric shaping what you see. When a commercial choice and a reader’s interest conflict, the reader wins, and we would rather lose the client than the record.
Being an .org also implies the data should outlive us. The protocol is public so it can be checked and repeated, the thresholds are stated so they can be argued with, and the long-term intention is to make the structured data available for others to use and correct. A measurement that only one organisation can see is not much of a standard.
About AccessVerified: common questions
Is AccessVerified free to use?
Yes. Every profile, score, source and measurement on the site is free to read, in all five languages, with no account, no sign-up and no newsletter. The work is funded by paid accessibility audits and coverage reports for venues and public bodies, which buy measurement and advice but never influence a published score.
Who measures the accessibility data on this site?
Verified profiles are measured on site by trained verifiers following our published protocol, with instruments and photographic evidence. Compiled profiles — currently almost all of them — are assembled by our editors from venues’ own accessibility statements and other public sources, with each source and retrieval date listed. Every profile states which of the two you are reading.
How many places has AccessVerified verified on site?
Few so far, and we prefer to be direct about it. Essentially the entire dataset is currently compiled from published sources and labelled as awaiting on-site confirmation. On-site verification is being built out city by city, and profiles will show the measurement date once they have been checked in person.
Can I leave a review or rate a place on AccessVerified?
No, by design. There are no user accounts, no star ratings and no review system here, because we are not willing to present invented or thin social proof as evidence. What you can do is report a correction on any profile — if a figure is wrong or a place has changed, that reaches an editor and gets checked.
Get in touch
Corrections, questions about the protocol, audit enquiries and partnership proposals all reach a person rather than a queue. Write to hello@access-verified.org, or use the report link on any profile if you have found something we have recorded wrongly. Corrections get answered first.