How Pramble Works

Pramble is a community-powered map that helps parents and caregivers navigate the city with a pram or baby carrier. Instead of guessing which streets are steep, uneven, or cut off by stairs, Pramble shows real-world accessibility ratings contributed by people who have actually walked the route.

You can find pram-friendly walks and family-friendly places on the map, including:

Rated footpaths and trails, colour-coded by how easy they are with a pram or carrier.

Family-friendly places such as playgrounds, picnic areas, benches and viewpoints.

Useful amenities like baby-changing facilities, toilets and parking.

Baby-friendly cafés, pubs, restaurants and other places to eat and drink.

Every coloured path on the map is built from user submissions. Parents rate a stretch of footpath or trail using one of four categories:

Pram-friendly — smooth, step-free and easy to push a pram along.

Carrier — easier with a baby carrier than a pram, for example because of steep or uneven ground.

Avoid — difficult or unpleasant with a pram, such as a blocked footpath or a very steep section.

Stairs — steps that interrupt an otherwise walkable route.

Optional sub-options let contributors add extra detail, such as a steep, muddy, uneven or obstructed surface, or whether stairs have a railing.

There are two ways to rate a route, and both help other families:

Mark lets you plan a route from home. Choose a category, then tap the map to place points along the path. Pramble snaps your points to the road and footpath network so the rating lines up with real streets.

Record follows you as you walk. Start recording, choose a category, and Pramble captures your route in real time using your phone's GPS. You can change the category as conditions change along the way.

The difference is simple: Mark is for planning, Record is for walking.

As well as rating paths, you can add family-friendly places to the map. Choose a place type — such as a playground, bench, baby-changing facilities, toilets, parking, viewpoint or picnic area — then tap the map to place it.

For cafés, pubs, restaurants and other places to eat and drink, Pramble searches nearby venues so you can pick an existing place and add your own amenity ratings, such as high chairs, pram space and baby-changing facilities.

Every contribution makes the map clearer for the next parent. A path you rate today might save another family from turning back halfway up a steep hill tomorrow. A playground or baby-friendly café you add becomes a useful stop for someone planning a family walk nearby.

Ratings reflect real conditions on the ground, contributed by the people who use them — not scraped from a directory.

When you contribute, Pramble records:

The category you choose for a path (pram-friendly, carrier, avoid or stairs), plus any optional surface or condition details.

The snapped route geometry along the road and footpath network, or a lightly smoothed trace for off-network paths.

The location and type of any place you add, along with your amenity ratings for eateries.

Your contributed distance is attributed to your username on the public leaderboard, unless you choose “No username”.

Pramble combines community contributions with trusted data sources:

OpenStreetMap contributors provide the underlying map data, licensed under the Open Database License.

OpenFreeMap provides the map tiles you see on screen.

Geoapify provides place search and venue data used to find eateries and locations.

OpenRouteService provides route matching that snaps your recorded or marked paths to the road and footpath network.