C-Tran just lately started providing free visible help companies to assist blind and low-vision bus riders navigate their routes.
C-Tran has teamed up with Aira, a California-based firm, to supply free entry to the cellphone app Aira Explorer. Aira Explorer connects customers with educated visible interpreters through a reside video name. By way of the app, interpreters use the rider’s cellphone digital camera to help with navigation, learn aloud indicators and describe the atmosphere, guaranteeing a smoother and safer journey expertise.
“This felt like a natural fit,” mentioned Eric Florip, a spokesman for C-Tran.
C-Tran was conscious of Aira as a result of the corporate additionally works with the Portland Worldwide Airport, he mentioned.
Riders could make calls to Aira 24/7, and no advance reservations are required. There isn’t any restrict or price to calls, and the service is designed to be obtainable at any time when the necessity arises.
C-Tran riders can even use Aira’s picture chat function, the place they’ll add or take a photograph — like of a bus cease signal — and obtain an in depth synthetic intelligence-generated description.
Everette Bacon, Aira’s chief of blindness initiatives, mentioned an absence of entry to visible help can hinder independence.
