UK-Based Company ‘Transreport’ and Hankyu in Japan Collaborate to Improve Accessibility

By Barrier Free Japan

April 9 2025

KANSAI – This sign has only just started appearing on Hankyu Trains in the Kansai area in Japan, but thank you to ‘Transreport’ and the Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc for helping make Japan more accessible!

Transreport is a UK-based accessibility technology company specializing in solutions that enhance travel experiences for disabled and older individuals. Their flagship product, the Passenger Assistance app, allows users to book assistance, communicate access needs, and provide feedback on public transport journeys.

The Passenger Assistance is an app designed to make it simpler for disabled and older people to organise the assistance they need when travelling on public transport. Using this technology, passengers can book assistance, communicate their access needs, make seat reservations, and provide feedback on service levels for the journeys they make. Since launching in the UK in 2021, the app has been used facilitated over 7 million assistances for over 1 million customers.

An estimated 37 million people in Japan requiring assistance when travelling, Passenger Assistance has the potential to make a significant difference to disabled and older passengers.

The partnership also highlights the trust that Japanese railway companies have in Transreport to support their rail services – Japan has almost four times as many rail stations and 15 times more rail passengers annually than the UK. There are around 2,600-2,700 rail stations in the UK while Japan has over 9,700 with the country seeing around 25 billion rail journeys annually, compared to the UK’s 1.7 billion.