Company: Travel Hands
Founder: Ishan Jha
Website: https://www.travelhands.co.uk
About Travel Hands
Travel Hands is a registered charitable incorporated organisation (CIO), charity no—1201509, in England and Wales. Currently, there are 3 boards of trustees, who are responsible for the governance of the CIO.
Travel Hands helps visually impaired people (VIPs) commute by connecting them with sighted, verified volunteers called Travel Hands. Since 44% of VIPs in the UK use smartphones, we operate through both a call center and mobile web apps. Our dashboard allows the customer service team to match requests, chat with users, and monitor journeys for safety.
When a VIP requests a journey, either directly or through our team, we notify nearby Travel Hands. The accepted volunteer picks up the VIP and walks them to their destination. VIPs pay a small fee per trip, while Travel Hands provide flexible support. All volunteers are vetted by the Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and receive training through our app, which includes text and videos. As a thank you, Travel Hands earn rewards that can be redeemed in the app. Businesses can promote their products or services as rewards for users to claim.
Impact
Travel Hands enables the VIP community to have a safe outdoor travelling experience from end to end. With 900+ journeys conducted in London, the service has proven to save 30 minutes for every journey undertaken and £40 on travel costs per month as compared to pre-pandemic statistics for an active VIP in London. VIPs and Travel Hands are encouraged to be more physically active and improve social interactions to avoid loneliness.
Progress and Capability
Travel Hands started in May 2021 in London, in the form of a call centre, and now has 900+ journeys completed, 300 VIP sign-ups, and 78 active volunteers. This has helped us to gain experience and validate major assumptions. The algorithm of the mobile app is created from learnings and feedback from these journeys. The web based application and mobile app have been designed following the WCAG 2.1 accessibility guidelines and following user research and testing with our VIP community. We launched the mobile application in August 2023 and are improving further.
Story
I was detected with a degenerative eye disease, Keratoconus, in 2013 and was losing my eyesight quickly. I realised that my dreams of creating innovative solutions to solve problems will be faint if I did not take each day of my life seriously. Call it karma or luck, my entrepreneurial journey brought me to London for pursuing MA in Service Design from the University of the Arts London (UAL) in 2017-18, and NHS provided me with a solution that has improved my eyesight manyfold times and changed my life. As the first step in creating valuable solutions for blind or partially sighted people, I published a white paper on the topic, “How to increase employability for the VIP in the UK?”. Volunteering with the Blind Aid charity made me realise the challenges faced by VIP and thus the idea behind Travel Hands was formed.
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