GWR joins Tourism for All in promoting accessible travel

Image: Credit, Charlie Budd

Tourism for All, the charity championing accessible holidays for disabled people in the UK, is excited to announce a new partnership with Great Western Railway (GWR).

Tourism for All is an independent national charity that focuses on helping disabled travellers find holiday accommodation and things to do across the United Kingdom, as well as offering help and advice to help those with accessibility needs use the nation’s public transport systems.

This new partnership with GWR, one of the largest train operators in England, will help further this cause and provide up-to-date accessibility information for travellers with a wide range of accessibility needs.

GWR is committed to making rail travel as easy and accessible as possible for everyone. There are several policies in place across the network to help make journeys easier for all passengers, as well as ongoing work on existing stations to improve accessibility, while all new stations aim to be fully accessible.

Support on the network includes Travel Assistance Cards, which can be downloaded from GWR.com and customised by passengers to best suit their needs before being shown to station staff.

Passengers can also use the national Sunflower scheme to alert staff that they might need extra assistance. The national Passenger Assist service is also available on all GWR services.

Together GWR and Tourism for All aim to give all passengers the ability to travel with confidence and find everything they need for an accessible break.

GWR Accessibility Mentor, Coral Thomas, said: 

"We at GWR are committed to our customers, helping all those who wish to travel by train to be able to do so. This includes working to provide as accessible and supportive environment as we can - recognising everyone has different needs and expectations. 

"We will continue to strive to make improvements across our network and make the railway accessible for all."

Ray Veal, CEO of Tourism for All, said: “We are looking forward to working with GWR to promote the inclusivity of their services. This will help to ensure that as many people as possible travel with them and will help to demonstrate to other travel operators the importance of making their services inclusive and accessible.

The importance of inclusivity and accessibility is increasingly being recognised and acknowledged throughout the tourism and travel sector.

For a person with access needs, getting to and from your destination, and getting around while you are there, are every bit as important as where you stay, where you visit and what you do. It is so good to see the steps that GWR are taking to ensure that everybody can travel in safety and comfort on their services.”