SL Faces Potential Fine of 300,000 SEK for Website Accessibility Issues

The Swedish Transport Administration (SL) is at risk of incurring a fine of 300,000 SEK due to ongoing accessibility problems with its website. This situation follows an extensive review conducted by the Swedish Agency for Digital Government (Digg) in 2021, which assessed 28 web pages and three documents related to SL's online presence. The review uncovered several significant accessibility shortcomings, indicating that the website was difficult to navigate and understand.

One of the main points highlighted by Digg was the impracticality of presenting timetables in PDF format. This format made it challenging for users to access necessary information effectively. In response to these findings, SL committed to resolving the identified issues by March 2022.

However, shortly after this commitment, Digg indicated that it would conduct a follow-up review. SL requested a delay, assuring the agency that the issues would be rectified by the end of March. Since then, SL has sought extensions multiple times, citing the extensive resources required to improve accessibility. The organization argued that implementing the necessary changes could cost as much as 11 million SEK and would demand approximately ten hours of work per PDF document to address the identified accessibility flaws.

In May 2023, a follow-up review by Digg revealed that many of the issues had not been resolved. Consequently, the agency proposed a fine of 700,000 SEK if SL failed to enhance its website's accessibility. In April of this year, Digg reported that SL had managed to rectify only seven out of 17 identified problems. Despite these efforts, Digg has decided to proceed with a legal application to the administrative court to impose the fine of 300,000 SEK, as reported by the news agency Siren.

In addition to this situation, SL has been making headlines for other reasons, including a significant decrease in fare evasion on its services, resulting in increased ticket revenue. Furthermore, the organization is also investing hundreds of millions of kronor to update signage across its network.