Data story · External evidence
The accessibility time tax
Before many disabled people go anywhere new, an unpaid job begins: phoning ahead, studying photos, cross-checking reviews, planning fallbacks. It is invisible, unmeasured and constant. The best recent evidence puts numbers on it.
What the evidence says
Euan's Guide, the disabled access charity, surveyed more than 4,400 disabled people, their families and carers for its 2025 Access Survey. Four findings define the problem.
Source: Euan's Guide Access Survey 2025, 4,400+ respondents. euansguide.com/accesssurvey
Why this is an information problem
Notice what the 85% figure implies. The most effective intervention respondents identified was not rebuilding entrances or retrofitting lifts. It was telling people the truth about what is already there. Much of the time tax is spent compensating for information that is missing, vague or wrong: “accessible” labels with no detail, photos that stop at the front door, reviews that describe the coffee but not the step. Uncertainty, not architecture, is what cancels plans.
What measurement changes
SARScore treats access as something to measure rather than assert. Every location is assessed as a route (from a practical arrival point, through the entrance, to the actual destination), scored 1 to 5 from facts observed on real visits, with decisive barriers such as no step-free route always stated explicitly, never averaged away. A score publishes only when verified evidence supports it, and it always shows how confident and how fresh it is. The aim is precisely what the survey respondents asked for: information reliable enough to spend less of your week defending yourself against the unknown.