The City of Espoo Maps the Accessibility of Its Bus Stops in Just One Week
In summer 2025, the City of Espoo carried out a large-scale accessibility assessment of its bus stop network using a completely new approach. The goal was to gain, for the first time, a comprehensive understanding of the accessibility of bus stops across the entire city and to identify the most important areas for improvement. While accessibility data had previously been collected for individual stops, no city-wide overview had been available.
“In the past, accessibility assessments in Espoo focused only on new or renovated bus stops. The work was also largely dependent on a single individual. This project has provided us with the first comprehensive picture of the accessibility of the entire bus stop network.”
Sami Oinonen, Project Engineer, City of Espoo
The project was carried out in collaboration between the City of Espoo, HSL, Crowdsorsa and Riesa Consultative as part of an initiative supported by Traficom. Crowdsorsa was responsible for data collection, while Riesa analyzed the results and identified accessibility-related development needs.
How Was the Assessment Conducted?
Data collection took place in July 2025 using Crowdsorsa’s mobile crowdsourcing platform. Sixteen surveyors participated, photographing and measuring bus stops throughout Espoo. Over the course of a single week, data was collected from 1,417 bus stops.
Participants were compensated based on the number of bus stops they surveyed.
For each stop, geo-tagged photographs and accessibility-related information were collected, including:
- Boarding platform heights
- Cross slopes and longitudinal gradients
- Lighting conditions
- Seating
- Tactile warning surfaces
- Bus stop models and shelter types
Using this dataset, Riesa’s accessibility experts evaluated the current state of the network and identified key areas requiring improvement.
Key Findings
The assessment revealed considerable variation in accessibility between bus stops. The most common areas requiring improvement were:
- Boarding platform heights
- Tactile warning surfaces
- Lighting
- Older shelter models
For the first time, the city now has stop-specific accessibility information covering the entire bus stop network.
The findings were also presented to Espoo’s Disability Council and Council for Elderly People. Discussions highlighted the importance of accessibility throughout the entire travel chain, as well as the need to further develop safety, winter maintenance practices, and the availability of accessibility information.
Turning Data into Action
The results are already being used in public transport services.
“The data has been integrated into the public transport infrastructure register and is now used in the accessibility classifications shown in HSL’s Journey Planner. This means the information is also available directly to passengers.”
Mikko Oiko, Transport Planner, HSL
Several minor deficiencies identified during the survey have already been addressed. More importantly, the results provide the City of Espoo with a practical tool for prioritizing future investments and improvement measures. The assessment makes it possible to identify specific bus stops and areas where accessibility improvements will have the greatest impact.
As a result of the project, Espoo now has a comprehensive baseline dataset that supports systematic accessibility improvements, enables the monitoring of progress over time and helps direct resources where they will benefit users the most.