Web Accessibility

VIA Rail strives to offer a fully accessible environment where everyone can travel autonomously and comfortably. This extends across all our services, including our website.

It is our priority to continuously improve the accessibility and usability of the website on an ongoing basis to meet the needs of our passengers. We are committed to complying with the standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA. Please note that all external links from our website may have limited accessibility.

For screen reader users

The instructions below are provided using Google Chrome default screen reader tool. If you are using a different screen reader tool like JAWS or NVDA, the usage will be similar.

Screen reader users can navigate within a page in various ways as described below:

1. Use Keyboard ‘Up’, ‘Down’, ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ arrow keys to read next or previous items.
2. Use the Keyboard ‘Tab’ or ‘Shift + Tab’ key to navigate to next/previous focusable elements i.e. Buttons, Form fields, links etc.
3. Use Keyboard ‘Enter’ key to activate links in the page.
4. Use Keyboard ‘Enter’ or ‘Spacebar’ key to activate buttons in the page.

Checkboxes and radio buttons

For radio and checkboxes on the page, press ‘Tab’ and the arrow keys until the check box or radio button has the keyboard focus and press ‘Spacebar’ to select.

Dates in booking engine

When entering dates using a screen reader, please use the following format: enter 2-digit month / enter 2-digit day / enter 4-digit year. Please note that this date format may change outside the booking engine.

Dropdown items

For dropdowns in the page, press ‘Tab’ until dropdown button has the keyboard focus, then press the ‘Up’ and ‘Down’ arrow keys to move to next and previous list items. Press ‘Enter’ to select a dropdown item.

Beyond Web Accessibility: services on board or at the station

Whether at the station or on board our trains, take advantage of all our specific and adapted services. Find out what we can do for you.