Comprehensive city navigation app for users with physical and visual impairments

Accessible Map Ecosystem is a city navigation app for wheelchair users and people with visual impairments. It offers accessible route planning, real-time guidance, crowdsourced and institutional accessibility data, photos and haptic/audio feedback. By mid-2025 it had about 95,000 users and 310,000 data points.

Soochow Realinder Technologies is a tech-driven DPO, based in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, focusing on user-centred digital accessibility innovation. The company’s Accessible Map Ecosystem provides a navigation app supporting wheelchair users and people with visual impairments, integrating real-time information on accessible transport, venue infrastructure, and route planning. By 2025 the solution was in use in 13 cities in Jiangsu, with over 95,000 registered users.

Problems Targeted

People with disabilities face inaccessible urban navigation due to a lack of real-time data, fragmented services, and limited support from providers.

Solution, Innovation and Impact

The Accessible Map Ecosystem is a unified digital platform that improves day-to-day urban mobility for wheelchair users and persons with visual disabilities by offering detailed accessible route planning, real-time navigation, and integrated services across multiple city infrastructures. Its multi-modal app leverages crowdsourced and institutional data to map accessible pavements, venue fittings, and public transportation. For users, features include photos of accessibility issues at points of interest, specialized routing algorithms for step-free travel, and dynamic in-app navigation with haptic, audio, and visual feedback. For service providers (bus captains and venue managers), the platform offers direct notification or custom accessibility triggers, improving readiness and quality of service. By mid-2025, the Accessible Map Ecosystem had collected over 310,000 pieces of accessibility data, covering 8,777 sites, 2,386 curb ramps, 31,138 lifts, and 44,124 accessible toilets. Since 2020, the app ecosystem has been developed in collaboration with major Chinese city transit agencies and municipal partners (including Tencent and iFLYTEK). By 2025, it was in use in 13 cities in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, serving over 5.7 million beneficiaries with close to 100,000 registered users.

Funding, Outlook and Transferability

The Accessible Map Ecosystem is primarily funded through service purchases from local Disabled Persons’ Federations and government subsidies. Future business plans include advertising, trading in assistive devices, and rental services. The Accessible Map Ecosystem is growing, with plans for a nationwide rollout and commercialization of services by 2026. (#ZeroCall26)

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