London rolls out a badge and card for people with hidden disabilities
LONDON -- For people with hidden illnesses, London's public transport network isn't always the friendliest place to be. But that situation might be about to improve. Transport for London (TfL) has just announced that it is permanently rolling out a blue badge and card that says "Please offer me a seat" so customers who are less able to stand can be given a space to sit when they need one.
The badge and card are aimed at customers who find it difficult to stand when using public transport.
The card is designed as an alternative to the badge and can be shown discreetly to fellow passengers if people do not wish to publicly state they have a medical condition.
The announcement comes after a six-week trial in which 1,200 participants tested the scheme. It found that 72 percent of journeys were made easier as a result of the badge, and 98 percent of participants said they would recommend the badge and card.
TfL says that when the project is launched in spring 2017, it will become the first European transport provider to "officially recognise invisible impairments and conditions in such a way". "I'm proud that Londoners embraced this innovative trial and that Londoners wearing the badges found travelling around our capital easier as a result," Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said in a statement. This isn't the first time less visible conditions have been addressed on London transport. Throat cancer patient James McNaught designed a "Cancer on board" badge to help people like him get a seat on the Tube after he struggled to find one because he did not appear visibly unwell. "Getting a seat on transport when you need it can sometimes be really tricky, especially if the reason you need to sit down isn't obvious to others," McNaught said in a statement.
"When I was undergoing radiotherapy for throat cancer, it meant I couldn't talk to ask for a seat and the morphine I was taking made me appear drunk. It was a real struggle to get people to understand why I needed to sit down," McNaught continued.
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
