Ensure women’s safety in public transportation to make it efficient: Experts

KOCHI: In tandem with the theme of day two, “Inclusive Mobility,” the Sabka Saath Sabka Vishwas Sabka Prayas of the 15th Edition of Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference & Expo 2022 held on Saturday in Kochi covered topics that extensively discussed the nuances of inclusive mobility.

One of the sessions discussed gender-inclusive mobility, where experts discussed women’s safety on public transportation system.The experts opined that to make public transportation efficient, it should be made woman-friendly. The question to the policymakers is to think about why women are not opting for public transportation when the state government invests a huge amount.

Besides encouraging women to use the public transport system, women’s participation in employment in this sector should also be ensured. A large percentage of women leave because the public transportation system does not allow them to travel alone.

“If public transport is to be efficient, the participation of women should be ensured in all sectors,” said V Manjula, Commissioner, Directorate of Urban Land Transport, Bengaluru.At the session, issues such as unhygienic public toilets, and poor staff behaviour were pointed out as the main problems faced by women.

The incidents, such as the Nirbhaya death in Delhi and the murder of a doctor in Hyderabad, led the metropolitan agencies in Bengaluru, Delhi, and other cities to conduct a survey, to which women responded that, though they wanted to utilise the public transportation system, it was not safe.

At the session, Krishna Desai, technical advisor at GIZ, Dipti Mahapatro, general manager at Capital Region Urban Transport, Dr Kalpana Vishwanath, co-founder and CEO of Safetipin, Meera Sundararajan, gender and M&E expert and team lead at the Gender and Policy Lab, Greater Chennai Corporation, Shilpa Shinde, IAS, MD DTC/Special Commissioner, Transport, Transport Department, Delhi, and Priya Singh, cofounder and director of Chalo Mobility, spoke.

Issues faced by women
At the session, issues such as unhygienic public toilets and poor staff behaviour were pointed out as the main problems faced by women.