Dr. Maria Chiara Leva:

I thank the Chairman and members for inviting TU Dublin to contribute to the meeting. I am joined by my colleague Dr. Sarah Rock, a lecturer in urban design and transport planning.

I will present some findings from our research in the area of inclusion and transport, including a recent EU-funded research project, Diamond, which is aimed at uncovering factors affecting women as users of public transport and as employees in the transport sector. This research project complements many of the findings of the Travelling in a Women’s Shoes report. As part of the Diamond project, we surveyed and interviewed rail and light-rail users, as well as non-users, to find out why they do not use public transport in three cities: Dublin, Barcelona and Warsaw. We also interviewed employees. The research project is rooted in the principle of equity of opportunity for all and transport’s role in facilitating equality of access to key life chances and daily needs. Inequity of access traditionally impacts disproportionately on women, particularly in the areas of safety and time poverty, a term used to indicate how individuals with caring responsibilities perceive their time constraints resulting from paid and unpaid work. Our research focused on three key areas that impact on women’s engagement with public transport; namely, capacity to address basic mobility needs, accessibility in terms of physical access but also monetary access, and safety and security.

A key finding of the study is that people who experience any form of discrimination are likely to experience lower satisfaction in all aspects related to fairness of service provision, while for female users, feeling safe at any time of the day is a key variable for user satisfaction alongside connectivity to the destination, value for money and timely information provision. Put simply, this means that the more welcome a female feels within the transport system and the more satisfied she feels with the service, the more likely it is that she will continue to use public transport. Equally, the converse is true. If she does not feel welcome, safe and secure, she will change to another form of transport if she has the means to do so. We found that safety and security is a particular issue for women in low-income groupings and those belonging to an ethnic minority. These are also the groups that rely most heavily on public transport. We found that travelling with dependants often pushes females to select a different mode of transport, mainly the private car.

Women’s mobility needs and patterns are diverse and complex, depending on their age, socioeconomic status and caregiving roles, and this heterogeneity is not often looked at with clarity in our national surveys. Furthermore, most of the women interviewed confirmed that their sense of safety and security is often enhanced by clarity on norms regarding harassment and non-admitted behaviours and their sanctions; the presence of someone who can be considered a go-to person for help and assistance and who has the authority to intervene if needed; and clean, well-lit CCTV-supervised areas around stations and stops that provide a secure sense of place, meaning the urban design of the area should ensure that the environment around stations is not a lonely place but a welcoming place with eyes on the street and the presence of enough other people to increase the perception of safety and security. This is true for users of public transport but also for workers, given that the risk of violence and sexual harassment for female drivers and passengers remains a significant factor, with the result that women tend to avoid working in certain front-line jobs and at night. Not only does this mean women lose out on some job opportunities but it also limits the recruitment pool for transport agencies.

To return to the fundamental role of having access to basic mobility services, the collection and further disaggregation of data to include different socio-demographic characteristics for users and non-users is relevant in highlighting subgroups experiencing specific barriers or those in need of different types of facilitators. In a report of the International Transport Forum, it was highlighted that almost 40% of public transport journeys throughout the world are mobility-of-care journeys. These include visits to health centres, escorting dependants and journeys for shopping or other errands. Women constitute 80% of people in charge of mobility of care and most of these women use sustainable modes of transport, such as walking or public transport. Despite this, public transport networks and levels of service are typically focused on commuting to and from work, but these routes are often not the easiest routes for mobility of care. Mobility of care usually consists of more frequent, local and shorter trips and is irregular in time and space, given it involves travelling not only from residential areas to the city centre. Therefore, future transport planning needs to take into account mobility-of-care journeys. The proposed BusConnects orbital bus routes and the removal of fare penalties for transfers are welcome in this regard, and we recommend the greater prioritisation of delivery of these orbital routes with high levels of bus priority, in addition to the current rolling-out of the spine routes. It is equally important to include more women in decision-making jobs, planning and transport service delivery, including front-line services and maintenance services. EU and UK research has shown that transport has the lowest representation of women within the public sector, at between 6% and 7%, and that women account for just 15% of personnel in most decision-making bodies and advisory boards.

Men's and women’s transport needs are different. Understanding these differences will be fundamental to providing more equitable and sustainable mobility services. Women rely on public transport more than men do but many will reject it, as we have seen more recently in Ireland, if the system does not understand and meet their needs.