Disabled Persons Railcard - Marketing The Disabled Persons Railcard

Marketing The Disabled Persons Railcard

Management and marketing of the Railcard is led by the Disability & Inclusion Team at the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) in London.

At one stage British Rail produced two leaflets targeted at disabled rail users: one promoted the Railcard and the other gave details of rail travel assistance arrangements for disabled passengers. These two leaflets were merged into a single booklet entitled “Rail Travel for Disabled Passengers”.

This was issued once a year and contained information on the services train operating companies offered disabled people. Its A5 format meant that it could not be racked at most rail stations. The colour scheme was predominantly black, white and green, and arial font was used for easy reading.

By 2007 many train operating companies (TOCs) produced their own detailed information for disabled customers; following rail privatisation, each TOC had to produce a Disabled Persons Protection Policy (often known as a “DPPP”). Also, many TOCs produced literature targeted at disabled customers and all had websites with accessibility-related information. These developments freed ATOC to give “Rail Travel for Disabled Passengers” a face-lift and by May 2007 it produced a new version of the leaflet called “Rail Travel Made Easy”.

“Rail Travel Made Easy” returned to the DL-size used for most other rail leaflets, making it easy to rack at stations. The leaflet became a colour publication featuring photographs of disabled rail users travelling independently. Downloadable versions of this leaflet are on the Disabled Persons Railcard website.