In partnership with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, the Community Research team at the Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility has recently entered the next exciting stage of our community-led research work to support accessible transportation across Canada.
The Accessible Transportation 3-year research project (2024-27) aims to co-create with community partners a practical roadmap to reduce, remove, and prevent transportation accessibility barriers by improving the way accessibility standards are developed and implemented in Canada’s federally regulated transportation system.
Centering Inclusivity and Community in Research
The Accessible Transportation Community Working Group was launched in summer 2025 as part of Wavefront Centre’s commitment to community-engaged research.
The working group is a model of community-engaged research, bringing together people from different backgrounds and lived experiences within cross-disability, Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing communities across Canada to co-develop and conduct research aimed at providing the knowledge necessary to address real-world transportation accessibility barriers and develop practical solutions.
Our work with the group highlights the importance of principles of community-based participatory research, ensuring that the group’s research priorities and activities are shaped by its members.
Mapping the Travel Journey
To date, our working group meetings have focused on:
1) brainstorming the real-world travel accessibility challenges faced by members of Deaf, DeafBlind, Hard of Hearing and cross-disability communities in order to identify specific research priorities and questions; and,
2) working together to map out the “travel journey,” identifying key transportation barriers and supports at each stage (planning, booking, boarding, transit, arrival, etc.).
Co-Creating a Vision for Accessible Transportation in Canada
Moving forward Wavefront Centre’s Community Research team will work with community to co-design and conduct research aimed at gathering pan-Canadian evidence on real-world transportation barriers.
The findings will be analyzed to pinpoint root causes and high-impact leverage points, then translated into practical policy and practice recommendations for carriers, regulators, and standards bodies to reduce, remove, and prevent barriers in Canada’s federally regulated transportation system.
This work is part of a larger research project in partnership with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities on accessible transportation, funded by Accessibility Standards Canada.
