Transport for All
Transport for All is a disabled-led organisation working to remove barriers to travel and ensure disabled people can access transport safely, independently and with confidence. Through the Scaling Innovation Programme, Transport for All partnered with Ross Atkin Associates to develop TESS (Tool for Equitable Street Spaces), a practical tool designed to help street designers understand how different design features affect disabled people and make more informed accessibility decisions.
The project builds on a simple but important principle: every journey starts with a walk or a wheel. If streets are inaccessible, many disabled people are prevented from accessing transport services, employment, education, healthcare and community life.
The Challenge
Street design often involves balancing competing needs. Features that improve accessibility for one group of people can sometimes create barriers for others. Yet many existing design tools and guidance documents struggle to help designers understand these trade-offs in a practical way.
Transport for All identified a gap between highly technical design guidance and the lived experiences of disabled people. While designers often have access to regulations and standards, they may lack the evidence needed to understand how specific street features affect people with different impairments in real-world situations.
The project aimed to address this challenge by creating a tool that enables designers, planners and campaign groups to assess street features through the lens of disabled people’s experiences and make more equitable design decisions.
Developing TESS
TESS evolved from an earlier tool known as CoLSAT and was significantly expanded through the Scaling Innovation Programme.
The project involved detailed research with disabled people from across the UK, increasing participation from around 40 people in the original version to more than 100 disabled participants representing a wide range of impairments, mobility aids and access requirements. This broader evidence base enabled the team to refine the tool, improve its accuracy and increase its relevance beyond central London to urban environments across the UK.
TESS enables users to assess how different street features affect people with different impairments and identify where design choices may create unintended barriers. It has been developed in a format that integrates easily into existing design processes and is freely available for anyone to download and use.
Importantly, the tool is designed not only for transport professionals and local authorities, but also for Disabled People’s Organisations, campaign groups and communities seeking to advocate for more accessible environments.
Working with Disabled People
Co-production was fundamental to every stage of the project.
Transport for All conducted in-depth interviews with 64 disabled participants from across the UK, many lasting between two and three hours. Participants represented a wide range of impairment types and access needs, helping ensure that the tool reflected diverse experiences rather than a single perspective.
Accessibility was embedded throughout the research process. Participants were offered a range of adjustments, including tactile models for blind and visually impaired participants, captions and BSL interpretation for Deaf participants, and alternative engagement approaches for people with learning disabilities.
The project also brought together a panel of disabled people to test the tool in real-world street environments. Participants compared their experiences of navigating urban streets with the tool’s assessments, helping validate and refine the final version. Feedback from this panel directly influenced the tool, including its final name, TESS, which was suggested by a participant during the evaluation process.
Impact
The project has demonstrated how lived experience can strengthen transport planning and street design.
By combining the experiences of more than 100 disabled people with practical design tools, TESS provides a clearer understanding of how different street features affect different groups of people. The result is a more robust and evidence-based approach to designing accessible streets.
The tool has the potential to support better design decisions, strengthen engagement between local authorities and disabled people, and help ensure that accessibility is considered earlier in the design process. It also provides campaign groups and Disabled People’s Organisations with a practical framework for identifying barriers and advocating for improvements.
What happens next?
TESS is available free of charge through the Transport for All website and will be promoted through industry events, professional networks, Disabled People’s Organisations and policy engagement activities.
The next phase of development will explore how the tool can be adapted for rural and semi-rural environments and whether additional digital formats could improve accessibility and usability. Transport for All also plans to continue building the evidence base behind the tool to support wider adoption across the transport and built environment sectors.
By placing disabled people’s experiences at the centre of street design, TESS demonstrates how co-production and evidence-based innovation can help create streets that work better for everyone.
The TESS Tool
TESS is available free of charge through the Transport for All website which can be accessed via the link below