Website Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to content hosted on londonnorthwesternrailway.co.uk. excluding all other London Northwestern Railway subdomains.

This website is run by West Midlands Trains. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We provide an accessibility toolbar called Recite Me, which allows you to customise our website in a way that suits you. Recite Me includes text to speech functionality, dyslexia software, an interactive dictionary, a translation tool with up to 52 languages and many other features.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some pages and documents have poor colour contrast
  • some elements have incorrect attributes or roles
  • some element IDs are not unique
  • some tables do not have row headings
  • some images do not have image descriptions
  • some embed videos/iframes do not have captions or titles
  • some list items aren’t properly contained within the correct parents
  • some buttons are not correctly identified

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

  • online via our Contact us form
  • call 0333 311 0006
  • write to Freepost, LONDON NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 24 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

  • Email: [email protected]
  • call 0333 311 0006
  • write to Freepost, LONDON NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

West Midlands Trains is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard , due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some pages have poor colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1 (Use of Colour).
  • Some elements have incorrect aria attributes or else do not have the correct role applied for that aria attribute (fails WCAG 4.1.2). This may make form navigation more difficult.
  • Some interactive elements which have the same or similar purpose share the same ID attribute (fails WCAG 4.1.1). This may make it more confusing for screen reader users to use the site.
  • Some tables in content do not have table row headers when needed. This means assistive technologies will not read the tables correctly. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
  • Images on some pages do not always have suitable image descriptions. Users of assistive technologies may not have access to information conveyed in images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
  • Some iFrames do not have titles or captions (fails WCAG 4.1.2 and WCAG 1.2.2). This may make it more difficult for a screen reader user to understand the content or purpose of the iFrame before they interact with it.
  • Some list items aren’t properly contained within the correct parents (fails WCAG 1.3.1). This may make it difficult for users of screen readers to know that they are ‘viewing’ a list of elements.

These issues will be tackled as part of a content management system upgrade which is due to be completed by December 2022.

Some documents are not accessible in a number of ways including missing text alternatives and missing document structure, for example PDF. We plan to make our most popular PDF application forms accessible by December 2022.

Disproportionate burden

Labels not in names of controls

Some visual control labels do not match their accessible name (such as with the booking form submit button), which fails WCAG 2.5.3. This is a deliberate choice, as the accessible name is used to give extra information to help screen reader users check the journey parameters they have selected before they submit the booking form.

This change was made on the recommendation of a disabled users panel, and as such we feel that satisfying the above criterion would ultimately make the website less accessible rather than more so, and as such consider that doing so would be a disproportionate burden on the website’s screen reader users.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on timetables and engineering works information.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

Any new PDFs or other documents that we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 25th May 2022. It was last reviewed on the 26th May 2022.

This website was last tested in May 2022. The test was carried out by Altcom limited.

We used various approaches to testing, including the use of third-party agencies, professional accessibility testers with visual impairments, and site-wide tests using Axe Pro, Google Lighthouse and SortSite.

We are happy to provide further information on historic testing results if desired.