 Thank you so much for the warm welcome. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you guys are joining in from. And so excited to be a part of the hello ALNY celebration for the 10th Global Accessibility Awareness Day. I can see that there's a wonderful lineup and I'd like to thank the organizers for inviting us from Ola Mobility Institute over here to give a presentation. I'm going to apologize, write out a doubt set. I have a poor network over here and so I'll be keeping my camera off, but I assure you you're not missing anything. So this kind of an affair with me for a while. So I'll be speaking about urban transport accessibility. This is a topic very close to my heart. And Tanisha has already mentioned, I'd just like to make a small correction, I work with the Ola Mobility Institute. And for those of you who don't know about the Institute, we are a think tank, which works at the intersection of mobility innovation and public good. We focus on areas like accessibility and inclusion. We also do work around urban mobility, electric mobility, energy, future of work, platform economy and so on and so forth. I had accessibility and inclusion at the Institute. We are funded by Ola, we maintain an independent operation. And what that means is we really don't influence business operations, business decisions, strategic decisions or customer kind of in a service aspects of the Ola operation. So unfortunately, if you have any feedback on that count, I'd be happy to pass it on but I might not be the right person to action on that. So with that, let's start. Tanisha, maybe next slide. So, you know, most of you would be aware that we have a large population of persons with disability. There are multiple sources and multiple figures right from census 2011, which, which quotes a figure of 26.8 million. And, you know, you have global disability rates of 15%, which when applied gives a figure of roughly 180 million. And maybe the number of persons with disability somewhere near that the latest conservative estimates that comes from non government sources is around 100 million and in most like in all likelihoods this is an under representation. In 2016, as you all would have would know, India passed rights of persons with disabilities act, and we recognize 21 disabilities under that which is an increment from the earlier act from 1995, which recognize seven disabilities. That's the act which was referred to when the census was done. So in all likelihood, the number of persons with disability in the next census would be a much higher. And the important fact is, it's a large population, and it's about 10% of our kind of, you know, citizens over here. And so the needs of persons with disabilities are certainly important. Right. So, you know, just like any non disabled person, persons with disability also require safe, accessible, reliable, and affordable means of transportation. Transportation is really a catalyst. It enables access to variety of operation opportunities right from social and cultural, you know, seeing a family member or going out with friends for dinner. I know something that we all would be missing, given the times that we are living in right now to educational opportunities really interacting at the school with other peers, employment, healthcare and what have you. It's really a tool which is helping to unlock the full value of human potential. And we've already seen how lack of physical interaction, how breakdown of transportation is really destructive to economy but also destructive to mental health and quality of life that people are used to living. And therefore, the importance of transportation cannot be, you know, diminished really. Next slide please. If you were to think about what's the cost of exclusion of persons with disability. There's a ILO work paper which estimates the cost, which can be as high as 7% of GDP. This is basically when workers, when persons with disabilities are kept out of employment or under employed. And it's a huge figure, right? So 7% of GDP is roughly $140 billion. And to just kind of give you a perspective, it's 28 times of the money that's been allocated towards procuring vaccines by the government, which is about $5 billion or $35,000 per piece. And just imagine the magnitude that we are losing in form of economic dividend when we disallow people to function at their fullest. And again, because transportation is an important part which enables and facilitates this. We are really losing out on that in form of lost productivity of persons with disability themselves, but also their carers who otherwise could have been engaged in more productive activities and generated value for the economy. And government also realizes this. So, you know, over a period of time, there have been various measures that have been introduced in 2015. For example, Narendra Modi government introduced the accessible India campaign under which airports, railway stations and public transport was expected to be made accessible by 2019. The target got pushed later to 2020. And due to various reasons, including COVID, we've not seen much progress on that. But kind of, you know, we do see some working in that direction, both on the physical and the digital side. Next slide. Next slide. We have the government of Delhi, which introduced 1000 buses fitted with hydraulic ramps, which were expected to ease mobility for persons with disability, and particularly locomotor disability. Next slide. We have government of Goa, which introduced wheelchair accessible buses so that introduces dropouts in school going children. And while all of these measures are appreciable and, you know, they are helping to move the needle in the right direction. I think there's a miss over here. And that's primarily because these measures don't work in silos. They're not delivering the full value for the buck. Next slide please. At the Ola Mobility Institute, we really take a trip lens, a trip chain lens, when it comes to transportation and mobility. We believe that the transport experience is not limited to the period that you step into a vehicle and step out at your destination. It really starts from the planning process, wherein you kind of figure out how do you want to get from point A to point B, which mode of transport do you use, when do you leave your house or office, and is there any reason to change mode of transport. Let's say kind of change a bus or change trains, metro or local train, should you take a rickshaw and auto, how does price figure into these decisions. Is it a daytime, nighttime, all of this to and goes on from there to really kind of getting to the boarding spot, be it a train station or a bus stop or a rickshaw stand. It covers the process wherein you get into the vehicle, the intrinsic experience, the experience that you have when you disembark from the vehicle, when it comes to payment and complaint resolution and what have you. So it's an entire trip chain. And that's what's kind of missing when when government has introduced some of these measures because while, for example, there is a wheelchair accessible bus, the information around that may not be available as easily to people who need it. Or for that matter, the approach path from one's house to the bus depot may not be available or innumerable other factors might be at play over here. So we really need to take a trip chain lens and ensure that transportation is safe, accessible, reliable and affordable from end to end. Next slide please. So let's take a few examples when it comes to accessibility across the trip chain. Take example of information availability. When it comes to transportation, you have various offline and online modes. Offline you may have bus schedules or train schedules displayed on a board in form of a map or a route or in form of kind of a list. You have various online tools like websites, apps, information and communication systems, but very often they are lacking because they may not deliver on perhaps one of the factors. It may not have timely and relevant information. And this is all the more evident in times of COVID. So for example, every once in a while, one of our chief ministers or other government officials come and make a detailed presentation and explain how they are deciding to impose certain restrictions around movement of people around transportation. But for example, I'm in Maharashtra and I have not seen these presentations being accompanied by sign language videos, which alienates a large section of the population from the deaf and hard of hearing community. Later when a detailed notification is released, it's not released in a format that's accessible using screen readers. And so again, you're not informing people who live with visual disability or who may be relying on other assistive technology to access that information. And this is really catching people off guard because they find themselves unprepared to function in an environment with additional restrictions, which are ever changing. We've already talked about accessibility in some form. There also needs to be information that's relevant given your nature of disability. So for example, if my nearest metro train is having restrictions around the entry parts, I need to know if the entry part that I take which has a ramp as a wheelchair user is going to be closed down or is going to be open. If there's going to be any of the restrictions that I have to figure out. So some of the information is really missing. And that breaks down the process for transportation when it comes to an independent travel experience. Next slide please. Sorry. Can you go back? One more. Sorry. Okay, my screen actually froze. I think the next slide. Yeah, next one. Perfect. And when you talk of the next phase, which is getting to the boarding spot, we all have experienced how our footpaths and roads are in a state of disrepair. It's not accessible, whether you are a person living with locomotive disability, visual disability or a non-disabled person. And that's really destructive for an experience. This becomes all the more relevant in today's time when people are expected to maintain social distancing. Everyone has to negotiate through crowd, trying to avoid contact, trying to avoid getting exposed or avoid exposure. If you are a asymptomatic carrier, it's really difficult to manage that. Earlier, when accessibility of physical environment broke down, you often had people who were willing to assist you. But now, given the fear around COVID viruses, you have people who are not coming up to help as much as before, which flies in the face of independent living in the first place, but also destroys confidence of those who set out to travel to work. Otherwise, we also have family members who are equally concerned and it reduces confidence level of those people. So this is really an experience that we'd like to avoid for all the users, whether you live with a disability or not. Next slide, please. You know, whether COVID or otherwise, you also have another nuisance, which are stray animals. You have dogs and bulls, which often kind of attack persons with disability. So I, for example, live with a virtual disability myself, and I have many friends in the community and I have first hand seen how dogs get threatened when they see a white cane because, you know, certainly a cane does not have a pleasant association in their brains. And they bark, they attack. During COVID times, this has become all the more problematic because street dogs, which earlier survived on, you know, food being thrown away at them or fed to them by bystanders or kind of, you know, from garbage that gets collected out of the shops or restaurants, etc. They are not finding food and they're getting all the more aggressive. So even when kind of, you know, you have the best of the facilities available, these small aspects which which may not appear significant by itself is an accident waiting to happen. You've seen, kind of, you know, even before COVID you have XP examples published in the news media, where in a bull, for example, has attacked a person with disability. There's been other challenges. We've had, kind of, you know, students in very reputed universities face these constraints. And again, like, you know, this is this really makes it a very inaccessible experience unsafe experience for one to even walk up to the boarding spot. Next slide please. And it isn't all of this is important because, you know, it affects the more choice preferences that you might have. And even though, for example, you have an accessible metro station or a cab that you can hail from the street or a bus. These, these experiences may, may kind of, you know, force you to choose modes that you otherwise wouldn't have chosen for want of affordability or price points. Or for that matter you might recruit health offense and family members or hire a driver, which is an expensive affair in of itself but also, you know, as I mentioned plays in the face of independent living and you really don't want to do that, especially in times of today when everyone is overwork trying to handle multiple domestic and professional responsibilities. People may be unwell they might not be, they, whether COVID or otherwise there's kind of a lot of pressure, and you want to avoid that. So you really need an infrastructure that supportive of independent living and which is safe accessible reliable, which promotes affordability. Even when you get to the boarding spot, the trouble is many of the vehicles are inaccessible. So when it comes to entrances of, let's say, train, you can see from examples over here displayed on the screen how the train is at a level much higher than the platform and so as a wheelchair user you may not be able to climb it. The train. Similarly for bus, you have instances wherein there is no ramp even when there is a ramp people are not able to operate it because of because either the staff is not aware how to how to use it or because it's been unused for such a long time that it's not well maintained. And, you know, these problems are very common. There are also changes in bus schedules these days, which, which in absence of accessible information, kind of, you know, throws planning in the toss. For many this is a problem, but especially for people who live with intellectual disability because for many of them they have trained themselves to operate along a standard operating procedure really. And when there's a change in the bus schedule when the bus that they're not used to comes in, when the conductor is unfamiliar to them, they really get confused and it affects their productivity and ability to participate in experiences. And, and that's kind of, you know, that's a challenge really. Next slide please. So many people, when we interviewed them we realized that, you know, the denial of transportation can be very, very stark. So, when we interviewed some women from the National Association of Blind, they explained how the buses won't even stop for them. This was the disabled women, the blind women waiting for it. And, you know, there's a lot of attribution over here. One is that as most of you would know that persons with disability are entitled to travel free of cost on in a bus when they procure a pass and pay an annual fee. And that kind of, you know, affects the ticket sales, which puts pressure on the conductor and the drivers. And so they rather have someone who's going to buy a ticket than ferry someone who's living with a disability and is losing one passenger. There's also stigma associated with it, which is all the more magnified because for many people, disability and disease have a mental association and that's that kind of, you know, denies the opportunity to even travel. Next slide please. To speak of the in transit phase. So, you know, this is a time that you have entered the vehicle you are traveling and it's going from point A to point B. There are a variety of challenges that may come about, which range from attitudinal barriers, as a result of lack of training and sensitization on the parts of drivers, conductors and co passengers. You have instances of harassment, wherein under the guise of being helpful you have disabled women being grouped and physically harassed. For persons with disability and women in particular, this is all a bigger issue because, you know, if you were to think about a non-disabled person, this is not a pleasant experience or forget pleasant like acceptable experience, even for them. But for let's say a non-disabled woman, without trying to dismiss the severity of situation, she has an option of, let's say, exiting the vehicle midway or for that matter jumping off if the situation becomes that extreme. For a person with disability and women in particular, you really don't have that option because imagine if let's say you are living with a locomotive disability, how will you escape that situation? Where will you go? If you are someone who's living with blindness, probably you may be able to jump off but now in which direction do you escape and how do you manage to get away from your assailant. That's a real threat which, you know, takes away from the safety aspect of a mode of transport. The constant changes also disrupt the travel experience of persons with disability, those intellectual disability, for example, as I mentioned earlier, but also other disabilities because, you know, you've memorized the root information, you're relying on your other senses and so let's say when there is a rerouting that happens on account of road construction or on account of any other reason, it's really disorienting for people. Earlier, when COVID was not a reality that we lived with, there was a chance that you could ask a co-passenger and take assistance from them. These days, that's not an option that's very often available to you, either because you don't want to get exposed or because the other people are afraid to come forth and help you. And that's, again, kind of, you know, taking away from the travel experience and the independence journey. Next slide please. I'm going to skip this in backing because the experiences are very similar to boarding and also the experiences that come about when you exit the vehicle and go towards your destination, ultimate destination. I want to speak about payments right now. For a long time, digital payments have received a lot of emphasis, which is good in a way because, you know, you have the opportunity to make these transactions accessible. Cash has received less and less, kind of, you know, I guess like preference, the preference for digital has increased in the COVID times. The troubles arise when, you know, design choices meet these instruments inaccessible. Over here, you would have a photograph of a credit card machine, a POS terminal, point of sales terminal, which is a touchscreen instrument, and when I as a visually challenged person wants to enter my PIN, I'm not able to do that. And this is a true story, for example, on my part that when I'd gone to purchase some consumer durables and the amount was significant, the POS terminal was a touchscreen. I was not confident if the amount keyed in was correct, am I going to kind of be overcharged by any chance, and that destroys the experience. Similarly, when it comes to vending machines or kiosks for tickets for a, you know, like contactless experience really or experience that's separate from human interaction. Many of the times these, these experiences, these interactions are not accessible, and that again kind of, you know, disables you because you're not able to buy ticket to for your journey. As also many of the mobile apps that are used for payments may not be accessible either fully or partially. Very often, when these apps are updated from time to time, there is something that breaks in terms of accessibility and you have to, you know, you walked out of the house, relying on the assumption that the app that was useful yesterday, the payment experience that was accessible yesterday is not accessible anymore. And that's something that kind of lands you up in trouble. You have a lot of scope or improvement when it comes to payment and there's a lot of opportunity over here to make experiences accessible and affordable. Next slide please. Yeah, so I'd like to, you know, like close by speaking about some recommendations for this when it comes to this. To begin with, I think we, there's an urgent need for information data points that are disaggregated by gender Asian disability. Unless we have that information that's timely that's reliable that's accurate. Effective transport planning may not be possible. So we need information not just about population but we also need information on travel data for persons with disability, obviously in an anonymized disaggregated way, which does not intrude on someone's privacy. But this information is important because then policy makers would be forced to take notice and put in measures that are accessible. Right now we are a really invisible population in some ways. And kind of know that that keeps us from having access experiences that are safe accessible reliable and affordable. The next one is we need standards for accessible transport, which would provide guidance to the operators in terms of creation of experience and also established baseline on as to which what elements of transportation would make things accessible for persons with disability. Right now, in absence of that you may not even even well intentioned. What do you call operators might be at loss to where as to where to start right so that's that's an important element that's kind of missing. We would want Sarah which is safety accessibility liability affordability to be a core tenant and a mandatory condition for awarding government contracts. Government in spending has goals beyond returns on investment they have development goals and as a as a large buyer with significant spending. It has the power to use public policy to influence no market dynamic so if this wasn't essential condition for government contracts, we would have kind of no effect on the supply side wherein people would be incentivized to create safe accessible affordable experiences when it comes to transportation infrastructure vehicles operations and what have you. So that's that's something that's very important. We've spoken a little bit about the, you know, travel subsidy that persons with disability get for example in the bus systems and what are the unwanted side effects of those. We also have governments kind of announced subsidies for kind of free travel for women from time to time, or any other measures. We really have an opportunity over here to use the digital infrastructure that's created the India start that's in place to to mobilize the community in a digital way, which will, which will help in kind of no record keeping which will help in data creation that will be then useful for planning purposes, but also, which will disincentivize people from, for example, denying service to persons with disability and other marginalized communities. Lastly, we need we need a supply side intervention as well from the from the government. And over here, we would want the government to announce certain incentives which would which would kind of you know push the supply side which are transport operators, automobile manufacturers, and other players to create experience that are accessible. Right now, right now that the trouble that kind of you know often occurs through our conversations with business owners is that they, they try and make a decision on a cost and return basis. And in the absence of credible data in absence of information around purchasing power and absence about market size. They, they are less inclined to take decision that are which they agree are right but they're not prioritizing that. And so incentives on that front would help kickstart the process, which, which we've seen have happened in other places for example when the government wanted to incentivize the payments it kept the merchant discount rate or the fees that great card accepting merchants are taking are paying for that matter to incentivize its adoption. And so we need some incentives like that which may range from tax breaks or any other kind of incentives. And so that's that's another recommendation that we have for the for the policymakers and market participants. Next slide please. Let's let's all that we have for you over here. And also before before kind of an open up for Q&A. I'd like to share some information about an upcoming report from the Ola mobility Institute which goes much more in depth along the lines that we spoke about. So we have partnered with over nine organizations working for the empowerment of persons with disability with collective experience of more than 175 years. We have engaged in semi structured interviews and focus discussions with persons with disabilities across three, three groups, namely persons living with locomotor disability persons living with visual disability and members of deaf and hard of hearing community to travel experiences across various modes of transport, including metros and local trains along buses and auto rickshaws and taxis, whether you hail it offline, or you hail it to a mobile aggregator. And it has some really interesting insights, I'm sure that will be useful for policymakers businesses and also accessibility champions as yourself so I request you to keep an eye on that. If you're interested in getting a copy, I request you to put your contact information in the chat box and we can kind of, you know, ensure that a copy sent you directly upon its release shortly. And yeah, so we're really excited about that. With that, I'd like to thank you folks and welcome any questions that you may have.