During the design and construction phases of the Gruppo FS websites, great care was taken to observe the accessibility and usability characteristics so that the pages would meet the technical requirements of the Italian Ministerial Decree implementing the so-called “Stanca Law” (Italian Law No. 4/2004 “Provisions to facilitate disabled persons' access to ITC equipment”). The characteristics also comply with the WCAG 1.0 guidelines set forth in the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) international standard, launched by the W3C world consortium, which is involved in standardizing the design of websites.

Making a site accessible means allowing anyone to have full access to the contents, information and services available on the site, regardless of the operating system, navigation tools (devices other than monitor, keyboard or mouse), the browser settings and the available connection speed; so access to services and information is also extended to people who need assistance technologies or particular configurations due to their disabilities.

From a technical point of view, all the pages on the Group's websites are valid as regards the doctype XHTML 1.0 Strict and their layout has been done using only CSS style sheets and do not contain inaccessible flash items and frames. No hidden tables have been used. 
Furthermore:

• The textual equivalents have been supplied that transfer to the user the same information as the non-textual contents (all the content images have a description of their own in the ALT attribute, the purely decorative images have an ALT attribute with no contents).
• Text and graphics are comprehensible even if they are displayed without colour.
• The forms have markers that make the link between a text-entry field and the related text label, unique.
• The colours have been studied so as to ensure a good contrast with the background and the colour in the foreground (text) and avoiding the use of colours that are too bright or that could cause discomfort in viewing the pages.
• The structure was created using the kind of markers that can be interpreted correctly by every browser system.
• The pages are accessible even if javascripts are not supported or have been disabled in the user's navigation systems.
• The characters have been set with relative sizes, that are compatible with the preferences specified by the user in their browser under the “character size” option.
• The forms have been set to allow users to access the information, fill-in the fields and send the data via a number of devices.
• Connections to external contexts are displayed in external windows if javascripts are enabled.
• Items to help with navigation have also been included (link blocks).
• The website can be browsed correctly with assisted navigation tools.

The websites have been tested with the following browsers in different operating systems:

Advanced support

In order to ensure the widest possible usability of the website contents, certain advanced navigation support instruments were introduced, such as key combinations providing rapid access to various sections of the website and the rapid links to main navigation and its contents.

In particular, the implementation scheme for rapid access keys that are common to all pages is shown in the following table:

Furthermore, on each single page you can have numerical rapid access keys, that vary based on the contents of the pages themselves and the existence of navigational context menus.

In addition, we would remind you that the various browsers have different procedures for activating rapid-access keys; the following refer to the most commonly-used browsers.

Note:only limited use has been made of the access key, since this technology requires you to assign certain keys the function of selecting a link, and sometimes it can compromise the navigation for users who use voice-reading programmes, where the associations with keys already exist.

Final Note

The Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato websites were produced and implemented with the utmost care and attention towards accessibility for all categories of users. 

Since the Homepage of the website is changed quite often, the website may sometimes be partially inaccessible for temporary periods.

Accessibility i.e. the ability of IT systems to provide services and usable information without discrimination is an on-going process and not a point of arrival.

Therefore, the accessibility of the websites will be monitored and accompanied by editorial and technical development guidelines produced by the editorial offices. Some pages and services have not yet been made accessible.