Constituency data: How accessible are Britain’s railway stations?
We take a look at how accessible Britain’s railway stations are for people with disabilities and what data is available via region.
This briefing looks at how accessible Britain’s railway stations are for people with disabilities. It includes an interactive dashboard to explore selected accessibility infrastructure by each constituency in Great Britain, as well as a timeline of recent policy progression on improving accessibility.
What is an accessible railway station?
‘Accessibility’ means removing physical or virtual barriers to environments, systems or services so that all people – regardless of ability – can use and interact with them.
An accessible railway station is a railway station that removes physical barriers to access. This can be achieved in a variety of ways.
What infrastructure makes a railway station accessible?
This briefing focuses on the physical accessibility of National Rail stations in Great Britain (with reference to the types of accessibility infrastructure shown in the diagram above).
This briefing does not examine the accessibility of railway stations in Northern Ireland, London Underground stations, tram stations or light rail stations (examples of light rail include the Docklands Light Railway and the Tyne and Wear Metro).
Who is responsible for railway station accessibility?
In general, responsibility for railway station accessibility is shared between infrastructure managers and train operators:
- Infrastructure managers, including Network Rail and ScotRail, are responsible for capital projects to improve accessibility. Examples could include installing lifts, ramps, raised areas of platforms and so on.
- Train operators are responsible for arranging assistance for passengers, for example if they need to use a ramp to board or alight the train. The Office of Rail and Road publishes a dashboard with data on the percentage of booked assistance delivered.
How accessible are railway stations in your constituency?
Use the drop-down menu below to select the constituency you’re interested in and view statistics.
If you need help finding which constituency you live in, you can search by your postcode, location or Member of Parliament here.
Alternatively you can open a full-screen version, which you may find better on mobile or if you wish to print.
We aim to make our data dashboards and downloads as accessible as possible. However, if you need this data in a different format from the versions provided on this page, please contact us on papers@parliament.uk and we may be able to provide an alternative.
How accessible are Britain’s railway stations?
There is notable regional variation in the accessibility of railway stations in Britain, as shown in the table below.
Note: Two stations lie on regional boundaries and are therefore counted in more than one region. The total number of stations for Great Britain removes these duplicates.
Nearly all stations (99%) are equipped with hearing induction loops, and a substantial majority (81%) offer ramps for train access. Ramp availability is particularly high in Wales, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the West Midlands, where it reaches 96% to 97%. In contrast, fewer than two in five stations provide ramp access in Scotland (37%) and the East Midlands (40%).
Around 69% of stations in Britain have accessible ticket machines, though only London (95%), the South East (93%) and the East of England (87%) exceed the national average. Step-free access is more evenly distributed, with regional differences staying within a 10% margin of the average (61%).
Other accessibility features remain limited. Less than a third of stations offer designated set-down points for passengers with impaired mobility (30%) and just 17% provide disabled toilets operated under the National Key Scheme.
What policies have increased railway station accessibility?
2006: Labour government launches the Access for All programme
The government launched the Access for All programme in 2006. Funding allocated as part of this programme is used to create obstacle-free, accessible routes from station entrances to platforms, and between platforms.
Projects undertaken as part of the Access for All programme are managed and delivered by Network Rail, and funded by the Department for Transport, which also selects the stations.
In April 2024, the government said that step-free access at approximately 45% of stations in the Access of All programme had been completed. The government noted that construction had started at most of the remaining 55% of stations due to be upgraded.
As of May 2025, the Access for All programme has implemented step-free upgrades at more than 260 stations across Britain.
Further background to the Access for All scheme is given on the gov.uk webpage Access for All: funding to improve accessibility at rail stations.
Additionally, Network Rail has an interactive map on its website showing the stations where work to improve accessibility has been completed, is in progress or is planned.
25 July 2018: Conservative government publishes the Inclusive Transport Strategy
The Inclusive Transport Strategy 2018 detailed the government’s commitment to improving transport accessibility in the UK, and said that the government was aiming for equal transport access by 2030.
The strategy allocated £300 million for Network Rail’s ‘Access for All’ programme in 2019, aiming to upgrade 73 stations over five years. The planned upgrade work included providing lifts or ramps, as well as associated works and refurbishment along station/platform routes. In the March 2020 Budget, the government announced £50 million of funding for step-free access at a further 12 stations.
2023 to 2025: Transport Committee scrutinises disabled people’s access to public transport
The Commons Transport Committee started collecting evidence for its inquiry, Access denied: rights versus reality in disabled people’s access to public transport, in February 2023. The inquiry’s report was published in March 2025 and found a substantial gap between the rights and obligations that exist in law and in theory, and the daily experience of people who rely on public transport, including trains.
Note: The Transport Committee’s report was based on evidence collected by its predecessor committee during an inquiry that was launched towards the end of the 2019 Parliament. Parliament was dissolved in May 2024, before the committee’s report could be published. However, some of the evidence collected by the committee from the 2019 Parliament was placed into the public domain and the inquiry was picked up by the current Transport Committee.
28 November 2024: Labour government announces a new Integrated Transport Strategy
The current government’s Integrated Transport Strategy, announced in November 2024, aims to improve the accessibility of Britain’s railway stations. It aims to make transport “safe, reliable and accessible for everyone […] unlocking equal access to opportunities across England”.
September 2025: Transport Committee launches new inquiry into transport integration
In September 2025, the Transport Committee launched a new inquiry, Joined-up journeys: achieving and measuring transport integration. The inquiry is examining how transport services and investment can best meet public needs and whether integration will lead to better transport accessibility.
Further resources Data sources and methodology
This analysis is based on accessibility data published by National Rail, only available through an XML API feed (a structured data format used to share information between systems). Station-specific information is provided and updated by the train or station operating company so, while generally reliable, some details may occasionally be out of date, incomplete or vary in accuracy.
Constituency figures are calculated by mapping railway stations’ geographical boundaries (provided in the Ordnance Survey National Geographic Database) to the geographical boundaries of constituencies (provided in the Office for National Statistics dataset). This method means that some stations are located in more than one constituency, and that the dots representing some stations on the map may appear to be outside of a particular constituency’s boundary.
- Office of Rail and Road, Estimates of station usage
- Wikipedia, List of railway stations in Wales
- Rail Data Marketplace, Knowledgebase stations feed
- Office for National Statistics Open Geography Portal, Westminster parliamentary constituencies boundaries
- Ordnance Survey National Geographic Database, Railway station land use collection
Parliamentary resources
- House of Commons Library, Access to transport for disabled people, 11 July 2022
- Transport Committee, Access denied: rights versus reality in disabled people’s access to transport, 20 March 2025
Other resources