A visually impaired man receives guided assistance from a Travel Hands volunteer
Travel Hands
This November, London-based startup Travel Hands intends to launch an Uber-style app to help individuals with sight loss living in or visiting urban environments receive guided assistance from volunteers.
Contrary to what some may think, not everyone living with severe sight loss owns a guide dog. Many simply use a white cane to navigate but this can become problematic in unfamiliar surroundings.
Added to the mix are the continuing aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic when many blind people faced significant struggles keeping a safe distance from others.
According to the Royal National Institute of Blind People, two-thirds of the 2 million people with sight loss in the U.K. feel less independent after the Covid-19 pandemic than they did previously.
Currently running as a telephone-only service covering the London metropolitan area, Travel Hands – a spin-off from the digital accessibility company VIP World Services, will move to an app-based platform next month.
Like Uber without the taxis
The comparisons to the Uber model are fairly obvious. Although, if all goes to plan, Travel Hands might succeed in making a dent in the bottom of line of various taxi services because people with sight loss often rely on cabs to cover walking distances when they aren’t familiar with their surroundings.
The proposition is fairly simple. For a fee of just three pounds for three hours of travel, the customer can use Travel Hands as a pay-as-you-go service. Alternatively, customers can receive unlimited guided journeys for a £15 monthly subscription fee.
When the visually impaired person opens the app, geolocation services will pair them with the nearest sighted volunteer and yjey arrange to met. This may be to enjoy a walk in the park or a short journey to the local Underground station.
All volunteers are screened through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) for a criminal record background check and undertake a training module provided by the company on best-practice for providing guided assistance.
Additionally, routes are centrally monitored and the distance covered is tracked.
Aside from making volunteers feel they are making a valuable contribution to society, as well as undertaking physical exercise in a novel and engaging way, volunteers also receive reward points according to the distance and time spent walking.
Travel Hands is hoping to make these reward points redeemable at major offline and online retailers by negotiating deals with the likes of Amazon, McDonald’s and Pret A Manger.
If this is successful, these major brands might also serve as a backchannel for recruiting more volunteers.
Founded in 2019 but interrupted in its progress by the pandemic, the company has received grants and mentorship from the likes of Innovate UK, Sport England, Geovation Accelerator and London & Partners.
Giving something back
Travel Hands is hoping to tap into the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pipeline of large brands due to the metrics they will possess related to journeys and distances.
Travel Hands founder and CEO Ishan Jha who himself was diagnosed with Keratoconus, a condition affecting the cornea of the eye, in 2013 explains further:
“We are in a position to provide our partners with precise details on how they are spending their CSR budget,” says Jha.
“We can show them both the impact they are making in the social sector and how they are promoting inclusivity.
“For example, we can show exactly what £100 in CSR budget relates to in terms of steps walked and distance covered and the environmental impact this has because people are relying less on taxis.”
The major challenge for Travel Hands, which plans to offer its services in more U.K. cities in the next couple of years, relates to scale. The Mobility as a Service provider has to achieve the correct balance between the amount of paying customers and the number of volunteers available near to their their location at any given time.
It would make little sense for a customer to have to wait at a street corner for one hour to receive a guided 5-minute walk to the Underground station.
If the average wait time in an urban center turns out to be closer to 10-15 minutes, then a truly innovative social enterprise has been created and one that can make an important difference to the physical and mental wellbeing of visually impaired pedestrians for years to come.
