Ensuring a safe, compliant and comfortable accessibility to meet the needs of 1.3 billion people with disabilities in the world.
We make their mobility easier on public roads and buildings. And we build the inclusion we all need.
It all started in 1993 with Gilles Rochon. At that time, he worked in an establishment dedicated to helping people with disabilities in their work life so he perfectly knew their everyday life. While talking with a blind person, he realized how difficult it was to cross the street when you’re non-sighted… In France, we had vibrating posts, pedestrian signals with constant noise, signal phasing that lacked clarity, it was all but adapted to the needs of users.So Gilles began imagining a reliable and efficient system to help blind and visually impaired people cross the street, with complete autonomy.He conceived remote-controlled accessible pedestrian signals and created EO Guidage. The city of Villeurbanne, near Lyon, welcomed our first APS.Gilles’s invention was revolutionary: it put audio as an actual signage device to guide blind and visually impaired people and give them information.Plus the remote control that activates accessible pedestrian signals on demand was also groundbreaking. Because Gilles already had in mind to use it to activate other systems, like audio beacons. For users with visual impairments, having just one remote control to actuate several audio systems is quite convenient.Gilles didn’t stop there because remote-controlled APS had to be deployed across France.And to guarantee this system kept working and ensure all the visually impaired have access to it, wherever they were in France, it had to be standardized.
Accessing all types of venues and services represents something normal for people without disabilities. But for those with disabilities, temporary or permanent, getting around, enjoying our cities, can be a real struggle. For us, this is unacceptable.Opening doors for everyone, enhancing accessibility and inclusion, removing obstacles, that’s our priority.
The inclusion of people with disabilities is a major societal issue of the 21st century: 180 countries signed the United Nations charter for the inclusion of the 1.3 billion people with disabilities in the world. We act at our level by creating accessibility solutions developed with users to better meet their needs.
The mobility chain needs to be accessible to all for equal access to education, healthcare, work, tourism, culture… Mobility needs to be inclusive for all.
Accessibility is universal: it needs to enable everybody to have access to the provided equipment and services.
The smartphone is a major tool for the mobility of people with disabilities. It reinforces and completes the physical equipment of infrastructure
It’s up to the world, our society, to adapt to the needs of people with disabilities, and not the other way around. Accessibility concerns us all, whether we have disabilities or not, especially when we know that only 15% of people have disabilities before their adult lives.
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