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ENERGIA News Issue 2.2, May 1998

Resources: Focus on Training

Towards Gender-awareness Provision of Urban Transport

Module 5 of a series on Gender and Third World Development, by Caren Levy of the Institute of Development Studies for the Commission of the European Communities (no date cited, but +/- 1991)

Reviewed by Margaret Skutsch

This manual is intended for use in courses for development workers, in particular urban transport planners and policy makers themselves. It is intended to give them insights into how the nature of urban transport planning has generally caused it to ignore gender issues, and failed to meet the transport needs of many women. It is part of a series, which also includes modules on gender and employment, gender and housing policy, gender and health, household resource management and gender planning in agriculture. The manual can either be used by the trainer herself/himself as a ‘distance learning’ resource, or for personal study, or as a source book in courses.

It starts with an analysis of conventional methods of urban transport planning, as developed in the West in the 1960's and as still generally in use today. These methods focus on predicting volumes of people travelling between different locations within the city, and the ‘modal split’ (percentage using different means of transport, viz. bus, train, car, etc.). The ‘journey to work’ generally takes pride of place in this sort of analysis. The manual succinctly points out that in focusing on the journey to work, planners have tended to think in terms of the male breadwinner and head of household. Far fewer women than men have access to a car for such journeys, and moreover, their jobs are often scattered more widely than men's, as instead of working in central places like offices and factories, they are more frequently in domestic service or in the trading sector. Women also make more trips of different kinds, for example they are usually responsible for taking children or older people to the doctor or the hospital, for buying provisions. These more diffuse destinations are not well connected by public transport services, and moreover, many of these kinds of trips are made during the day time when public transport services are not so regular. At night, women have particular problems as regards security and the need for a safe means of transport. This type of analysis should be a good eye-opener for transport planners, because the issues are very clear and concrete once attention is drawn to them.

A short section discusses the involvement of women in transport decision making, and another on redefining women's travel needs. The kinds of questions the trainees are encouraged to address, as regards specific development programmes, are the same as in other gender planning courses. Who will benefit and who will loose from this programme? Which specific groups of men and women will loose or gain? What trade-offs or compromises are involved? What is the resulting balance of rights, obligations, power and privilege between men and women of the various social groups?

A case study using the results of a gender-based transport survey of London is used to stimulate discussion and to help trainees consider how they would set up such a study themselves for their own case. Of course the situation in London is very different (particularly as regards resources available, but also the types of transport - the typical jitneys, matatus and motorised rickshaws which form important transport modes in many cities in the world are not represented) but the methods and issues are certainly very relevant to the developing country case. The lack of good data from developing countries on gender in urban transport, cited a number of times in the manual, is presumably the reason why this case study was selected.

Sadly, at the end of the 20th century, we are in a situation in which even excellent training in urban transport planning may not be able to help solve the problems of marginalised people in cities, including many women. As more and more liberalisation is introduced in the running of our economies, the state retains less and less control over the activities of the private sector providers of transport, and indeed the private sector is growing and publicly owned transport is being cut back everywhere. Since profit is the driving motive, it is to be expected that, unless regulated, private bus companies will always pick the heavily used routes, and women, with their diverse destinations and journeys spread out over the whole day, rather than rush hour journeys to work, will never have the market strength to command an improved service. Planning, including gender-aware planning, seems to be taking the back seat in the urban transport scene today.

Towards Gender-Aware Provision of Urban Transport can be obtained from:
The Publications Office, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex BN1 9NE, England