Integrating women’s concerns in public transport

Way Forward

India has a gender inclusion strategy in urban transport at the national level, which aims to ensure women’s representation in the planning and design of transport investments, information dissemination and considering women’s needs for better route planning, provision of special buses, increased off-peak hour services etc. However, these have yet to be translated into city specific policies and programs. An approach towards integrating gender in public busbased transport in India is suggested. It includes gender disaggregated measurement, planning, implementation and evaluation of:

i) Service planning and operations

a) This includes collecting baseline data of access to different modes of transport, the cost of transport, trip characteristics (modes, frequency, length of trips, w for trips), and transport quality and experience.

b) Women’s trip chaining travel patterns, destinations as well as offpeak hour travel must be considered in determining fares and route planning of feeder services.

c) In addition to reserved seats, women doors must be explored especially in peak hour travel. While women-only buses have been withdrawn in a number of cities for not attracting ridership, they have been critiqued for poor frequencies and not addressing those women who may travel with male members.

d) Flexible services like “Request a Stop and Hail and Board” must be considered after dark so that women, elderly and the disabled can alight closer to their destination.

ii) Public transport infrastructure

This includes safety audits of bus terminals, shelters / stations and streets. Apps like Safetipin and Harassmap have evaluated safe and unsafe places in different cities across India. However, there is a need for a common platform to collate disparate mapping efforts and in translating evaluations into improved streets and public spaces.

iii) Public transport vehicles

This includes low floor buses for some percentage of the public transport fleet, minimizing the vertical gap at bus shelters when boarding or alighting, ensuring sufficient width of gangway (to allow both waiting and passing through) and doors (to permit simultaneous boarding and alighting) amongst others.

iv) Employment, technical capacity and perceptions

a. This includes target driven measures to increase women’s employment, retention and growth in public transit agencies, such that it atleast reflects the city’s demography.

b. Verification of drivers and conductors must be undertaken along with defining standard operating procedures on how to address harassment. This will have to be supported with regular gender sensitization trainings.

c. Further, technical capacity will need to be built in public transit agencies to emphasize the importance of including gender as a separate category of data collection, analysis, planning and evaluation. Since electronic ticketing machines do not capture this information, periodic sample surveys can be undertaken to fill this data gap.

d. Finally media campaigns, videos on buses and radio must be used to sensitize co-passengers.