Access For All: What Difference Does It Make?

With an investment programme worth over £1bn it’s perfectly reasonable to ask what difference we’re making. We could do this by counting the number of completed projects and quantifying all of the platforms that now enjoy step-free access. This might give an indication – but there’s clearly more to it.

Ultimately we want more people to make rail journeys who would otherwise not travel at all or rely on a motor vehicle. So the real test of success is in the usage data before and after the upgrade. Are passenger numbers up, and are the target group making a modal shift from car to rail?

Disabled People Travel Less Often Overall – Why?

The challenge is a real one. Recent research from the National Centre for Accessible Transport shows that almost 8 in 10 Disabled people travel less often because of accessibility challenges, and over half (55%) choose not to make as many unfamiliar journeys as regular travellers because of travel barriers.

What are these barriers? Department For Transport research into the experiences of disabled rail travellers showed that 23% of reported problems occurred on trains, compared to 9% at stations. Passengers experienced problems with buying tickets when ticket offices weren’t staffed, access to the station, and lack of suitable toilet facilities both in stations and on trains. This illustrates how access is a bigger issue than step-free movement to and from the platform.

One difficulty with assessing the overall impact of AfA and other initiatives is the lag in publishing official statistics. The latest DoT data published in May 2025 covers the period up to 2023. This data is published in the context of the Integrated Transport Strategy and includes bus and blue badge schemes.

The other confounding factor is the overall recovery from the dip in journeys of all kinds during the Covid pandemic. It makes trends hard to read with certainty. Useful data can, however, come from analysing the number of journeys made using senior or disabled persons’ railcards and comparing trends at AfA-upgraded stations with national and regional averages.

Accessibility Generates Journeys

Research from 2021 showed a clear link between increased journeys made by people with reduced mobility and greater accessibility. It would be helpful to see this research repeated and expanded now we’re fully in the post-Covid era.

Analysing data for individual stations would help highlight specific accessibility issues: does the improved access need to be better publicised? Are there problems for disabled people getting to the station? Is the support they need to board and leave the train always available? This is the type of analysis that is badly needed to establish the overall effectiveness of AfA and indicate how planning needs to evolve.

A Self-Financing Model?

The final significant question is whether improved access brings clear economic benefits that make programmes self-financing in the longer term. Analysis by Steer on behalf of the RIA indicated that creating inclusive intermodal hubs around existing stations would have a financial payback period typically between two and six years. This would be generated through increased fare revenue, higher in-station revenue and through sustainability measures such as solar PV generation and EV charging.

Assessing the value and impact of AfA schemes isn’t straightforward (for all the reasons we’ve covered above). But it seems clear that there’s an established case for continued investment and further research into the full economic and societal benefits.

Sign-up to access our AfA resource area to find out more below.