TRANSPORT SAFETY & SECURITY
Safety & Security for Women
THIS STOPS NOW!
The end of the line for gender-based violence
Study after study reveals the extent of gender-based violence prevalent in and around urban public transport. As cities and regions begin to tackle this issue, experts share their visions for the future, and how we will get there with Isobel Duxfield
Young woman using her smartphone on subway train © SmartPhotoLab/Shuttertock.com
According to a recent study, one in three women have experienced or witnessed harassment while using public transport.
This is an astonishing, outrageous and frankly embarrassing figure. The European Commission’s International Women’s Day statement this year pledged to place gender equality at the heart of its activities. Efforts such as the EU’s first-ever victims’ rights strategy promise progress; however, transforming rhetoric into measurable achievement against gender-based violence requires action, now. Over the last year, Europe witnessed widespread outcry over violence against women in public space and on transport services. In London this March, the murder of a young woman, Sarah Everard, while walking home across Clapham Common, sparked protests and candle-lit vigils across the UK. The tragedy also prompted comprehensive conversation about the lack of safety for women when navigating urban transport networks and the further measures required. Women’s feeling towards safety and security has long been recognised as a critical barrier to their use of public transport. Many cities have – and continue to – trial new avenues for identifying and combating violence. In France, the National Plan to Combat Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence in Public Transport defined and measured sexual harassment and sexual violence in public spaces, working with transport operators to prevent and respond to incidents. Measures such as participatory walks took place around train stations, allowing women to pinpoint areas they observed as dangerous.
Meanwhile in the UK, Transport for London’s (TfL) campaign, ‘Report It To Stop It’, encouraged women to report harassment. Following TfL’s survey revealing 15% of female public transport users had experienced ‘unwanted sexual behaviour’, but up to 90% of those affected did not report the incident to police, the initiative resulted in a 65% rise in reporting. It is not just local authorities and public transport operators who are beginning to take security seriously. Shared mobility providers are also responding to demands for change as first and last mile travel have been repeatedly identified as critical junctures for women’s safety. In the Ile-de-France region, HandsAway established a partnership with Uber to ease the process of reporting abuse and securing assistance. National and local authorities are taking action. Indeed, the UK Government has recently pledged £45m (€52m) in additional street lighting, CCTV and police presence. These, and the actions in France deserve recognition, however, they must be acknowledged as just the tip of the iceberg in what is required to combat endemic gender-based violence. With the latest UN Women report revealing over 70% of all women have experienced harassment in public space, security is a major issue for our cities. “There is absolutely no legitimate reason for excluding half the population in transport planning,” says Astrid Linder, Professor at the Traffic Safety at Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), who has worked extensively on gender bias in transport safety, “We have got to this position, because we have not decided to do it differently – it is a consequence of our entire mobility mindset
There is absolutely no legitimate reason for excluding half the population in transport planning. It is a consequence of our entire mobility mindset.
From problems to solutions: Experts share their visions for the future
Big problems require big solutions. We asked several experts who have worked extensively on this issue to share the actions they consider most critical for achieving lasting change.
“Cities first have to listen and really engage women – including different groups of women – to know what sorts of improvements will help in any given community. Features like lighting and clear sightlines help, but you also need mixed-use environments that encourage use throughout the day and into the night. Cities go wrong by thinking that expanding policing, private security forces, and surveillance technology will help solve the problem. Again, this does nothing to help with the problem of violence in private spaces. A more comprehensive solution is one that asks, how do we empower women and give them more control over their own lives, rather than empowering a (predominantly male) institution like policing with more money, weapons, and status in society? Services like housing, childcare, health care, paid leave, and universal basic income will do much more to limit violence than more policing.”
Leslie Kern is author of Feminist City and associate professor in the department of geography & environment and in the Women’s and Gender studies program at Mount Allison University.
Lena Smidfelt Rosqvist is Head of Research at Trivector Traffic, Author of Gendered Perspectives on Swedish Transport Policy-Making: An Issue for Gendered Sustainability.
“Existing knowledge on gendered conditions needs to be disseminated among policy makers and planners in the transport sector to increase the level of competence, contest prevailing norms and raise consciousness on gender impacts. To actively involve a gender perspective in transport policymaking thus goes beyond increasing the democratic quality of policymaking by involving women as decision makers. It is not only a way for women to be able take part as individuals but also as a way of including female perspectives on planning. It will improve policymaking for overall sustainability as including a gender perspective on measures and decisions for the transport sector would (most probably) include a stronger stand for a more sustainable and safer transport sector.”
“Currently, women do not feel as safe as men do in cities; even to the point that their travel routes and times and mode choice is affected by the lack of feeling safe. To protect women and provide safety and the feeling of being safe, places with high potential for crime need to be redesigned. Specific aspects are better lights and paths that can be assessed before you decide to take them for example. Built environment, security cameras and safety staff can help changing places, and information about the safety of specific areas can lead to better protection. However, in the end, this is just eliminating the symptom and not the cause. Cities need to have better participation processes, interdisciplinary efforts and more women in decision making roles to identify and tackle issues.”
Ines Kawgan-Kagan is a mobility expert with a special focus on the combination of innovative mobility and gender in urban areas. She is a Council Member and German Ambassador of the Association for European Transport (AET) and chairs the Gender and Mobility group of the AET.
Currently, women do not feel as safe as men do in cities; even to the point that their travel routes and times and mode choice is affected by the lack of feeling safe
“The Pink Tax on Mobility is the concept that women experience specific and profound challenges in urban mobility. First, they overwhelmingly report sexual misconduct, including harassment and assault, on nearly every major transit system in the world. As a result of this behaviour, women avoid taking transit late at night, either adding costly taxis to their budget or leading them to pass on job opportunities with irregular hours or transit patterns. The secondary issue is that of caregiving: women are most often the household member responsible for transporting children, elderly parents, and other dependents to school, appointments, and activities. However, transit systems are not designed for ease of use by strollers or wheelchairs, or off-peak travel that these trips often comprise. Furthermore, pricing mechanisms do not account for the trip-chaining, or several shorter trips, which caregiving typically involves. Transit agencies can work against these outcomes by developing safer station environments, adjusting fare payments to account for differentiated travel patterns, and building in greater accessibility for mobility devices.”
Sarah M. Kaufman is Associate Director of NYU Rudin Center for Transportation and Co-author of ‘The Pink Tax on Transportation.’
“It is essential to design participatory processes with the purpose of seeing and understanding transport and public spaces through the eyes of the users. By collecting qualitative data on safety perception and security, measures can be targeted and implemented where it is most needed. The measures to improve safety are manifold, depending on the overall urban environment, infrastructural conditions, mode of transport and scope of project. Furthermore, with regards to public transport services, it is critical to train staff to deal with (sexual) harassment situations, and to ensure a greater and gender-mixed staff presence at stations and in vehicles. An exemplary approach to improve women’s safety perception in urban public spaces has been taken in Bogotá. The project “Me Muevo Segura” (I move safely) addressed the issue of violence and harassment of women by mapping the complete street and cycle network of the city, implementing interventions in mass public transport as well as the redesign of public spaces to increase the comfort and security of women and girls. However, we need to be aware that we cannot solve the safety threats women face in their daily travel through adequate and adapted transport services and projects alone. A fundamental rethink is needed to reach gender equality so that women are treated as equals.”
Leonie Guskowski is a project manager at GIZ, and an organising member of Women Mobilise, a platform launched by Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI), which aims to actively involve female change makers in urban mobility from all over the world, elevating their voice.
“I think one of the biggest issues we have in transportation is that our workforce is predominately male. There are less than 22% women working in this field and if you look at an executive level it is less than 3%. This means that our transportation system has an inherent design bias. The Pink Bus for female students in Pakistan is one such an example which was well intended but because no woman was part of the design process it failed initially. The bus service was launched to provide transportation to female students and in turn encourage more women to attend local colleges. The pink, women-only buses each had a conductor and police guard. Unfortunately, the male designers of the system forgot two things: firstly, the original routes did not go past any colleges/schools, so the female students had to walk from the stops to the schools – which was not considered safe; furthermore, culturally many women would not travel alone but with a male chaperone because it is considered indecent even if they only travel with other females. So, the buses did not have the uptake that was anticipated. We need to increase the female workforce: from designers to software developers to urban planners and especially in higher leadership positions.”
Sandra Phillips is a Shared Mobility Architect, and CEO & Founder of movmi. Sandra has hosted an interview series called Women in Shared Mobility and in 2020 she launched the EmpowerWiSM program - an accelerator for female transportation entrepreneurs - together with ABB, ITSAmerica, UITP and GoWithFlow.
Isobel Duxfield is Membership and Communications Officer at POLIS Network. Contact her: iduxfield@polisnetwork.eu
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