Hi folks,
Ten years ago I couldn't find an accessible parking space in my own home town. I knew they existed, but where they were, what condition they were in, and if they were free to park in was all unknown.
My name is Ryan, I'm a software engineer and a Disabled driver who works on accessibility and cyber security. I've been working on trying to solve this problem for almost ten years, and in my 20s, I built a prototype of it for Disabled people in the city of Aberdeen. A decade later, Close to the Door is what that idea became.
If you're a Disabled driver or passenger, or you care for someone who is, you know and deeply understand the problem. An accessible parking space ensures that you have the spoons or the energy to be present at the family event, to go to the theatre, to get picky bits in the supermarket, or to see where the day takes you. The disabled parking space is an accessibility aid, and it is also a symbol of who is welcome and who is invited — in our cities, towns, villages, workplaces, shopping centres and venues. For too long, the weight of responsibility for access has been placed on Disabled people.
In developing Close to the Door alongside Disabled people, the community have told me that in a parking space, a painted wheelchair symbol tells you very little about whether a space will actually work for you: whether it's wide enough to open your door, whether there's a dropped kerb, whether you can get in and out at the back. These details are essential for independence and interdependence, but they are also the ones you can't check until you arrive, and when a space doesn't work, we end up having to park a long way from where we needed to be, or worse, we end up abandoning our plans completely.
Close to the Door puts that information in one place, kept current by the people who use it. You can find accessible spaces near you, add ones that are missing, and review the ones you've used. You can note the things that matter, like a dropped kerb, the width, or rear access for those who need it; mark a space as taken; or flag one that's temporarily unavailable because of roadworks. Whether you're heading to the local shop, a hospital appointment, or driving abroad, the aim is simple: open the app and find information you can trust, instead of digging through council websites, satellite images, and out-of-date PDFs.
That information matters to the organisations behind these spaces too: councils and businesses. We'll be gathering your anonymised feedback and through our Vendor Portal, we will be sharing it back to them, so policy, planning and design can improve where it's falling short.
I didn't want to take it for granted that the app worked for Disabled people, even though it works for me and my needs. No two Disabled people are the same, much like their access needs. So before launch I asked Tilting the Lens, a Disabled-led accessibility consultancy, to test it properly, with 12 Disabled drivers and passengers across the UK, Ireland and Spain. 100% of them found it both useful and accessible, and where they found tech problems or had ideas for improvements, we fixed them, added them and checked again with the same people. You can read about the process here: Built with Disabled people: the research and engineering behind our accessible-parking data.
Your privacy is part of that trust. Every user is set up with an anonymised username and the app only asks for your location to guide you to a space. When you confirm that you are parked in a space, the only information that is shared with other users is that the space is occupied. They will never know who it is occupied by. And, while we have ambitions for policy and design to change by engaging with businesses and councils, personal data will never be the tool that we use to do this.
Close to the Door currently has 136,000 accessible parking locations on the app, but we know many more need to be added, tagged, verified and edited. We know and believe that this is a useful tool, but its potential can only be realised through community and collaboration.
Close to the Door is now live on the App Store and Google Play. Thank you for your patience while I finished implementing the feedback. Building this in my spare time as a Disabled developer has been a challenge, but a good one.
I hope it makes your journeys a little easier, and I'd genuinely like to hear what you think. You can get in touch through the app, the website, our social channels or you can email me directly at support@closetothedoor.com.
Cheers,
Ryan
Founder, Close to the Door