Transportation is frequently perceived as gender-neutral; everyone will gain from a road or bus system. However, it does not happen in practice. When it comes to using transportation, men and women have different requirements, expectations, and limitations.
Both men and women are working to improve everyones mobility in the future throughout the world. However, womens needs are frequently not adequately met in the transportation sector because men make up the bulk of planners and decision-makers in this field. While women have a significant impact on changing mobility, they are often overlooked and underappreciated in the process of making transportation safer, more inclusive, and more sustainable.
Transportation in Bangladesh is neither sustainable nor efficient. Understanding womens distinct mobility needs and requirements, their travel habits, and the limitations imposed by safety and security is necessary to bring about this shift. Furthermore, the views, perspectives, and experiences of women must be represented at all levels of the transportation industry for transportation systems to be fully inclusive and gender-responsive.
Sustainable development is based on gender-smart transportation infrastructure. Since Bangladeshs transportation system is still gender-blind, gender-smart transportation infrastructure must be implemented if the country is to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Consequently, inclusive infrastructure has a big impact on gender inclusion and offers cities invaluable growth advantages.
Infrastructure improvements for transportation must support gender equality and social inclusion. By improving infrastructure, women and girls will be more secure and safe. It is essential to have well-lit streets, hygienic public spaces, and dependable public transportation to lessen the fear of violence and harassment. Global infrastructure investment is predicted to reach $97 trillion by 2040, with poorer nations requiring two-thirds of that total to maintain sustainable development.
By 2041, the government intends to have developed a "Smart Bangladesh" consisting of smart citizens, a smart government, a smart society, and a smart economy. Gitanjali Singh, the UN WomensCountryRepresentative for Bangladesh, asserted that a gender-responsive infrastructure is necessary for a smart Bangladesh.
Singh claims that advancing resilience and gender equality in Bangladeshs infrastructure development is consistent with SDG 5 (gender equality).
An essential component of sustainable transportation and initiatives to lessen urban inequality is public transportation. The five As (Affordability, Availability, Acceptability, Accessibility, and Appropriateness) can be used to denote the social criteria of public transportation systems. Due to unsafe roadways, heavy traffic, a lack of shade from the sun or rain, or a lack of seating, a local bus stop might not be reachable.
Due to structural inequality, women and children from low-income families face more hazards when navigating the city. Furthermore, for a very large number of women in urban areas, the constant threats, from verbal harassment to outright violence whenever they leave the home are an unwelcome reality.
Public transportation for women is hampered in Bangladesh, as it is in many other places throughout the world, by "everyday" verbal and physical sexual harassment as well as more severe assault. Harassment, sometimes known as "eve-teasing," is a crucial factor in why women feel less safe on public transportation than males do. This makes them choose alternate modes of transportation.According to BBC News (2015), victims often bear a certain amount of blame, which can intimidate them or cause them to withhold information about the incident. In addition, there is a lack of investigation into reported incidents in Bangladesh, which discourages people from reporting.
There is no mass rapid transportation and a dearth of good public buses in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh with the worst traffic congestion in the world. It is difficult for female commuters to find a seat or a place to stand among the throngs of men, and for those who succeed, there is a significant chance of sexual harassment. The government of Bangladesh issued an order, but male commuters often disobey it, leaving nine places in the front of buses reserved for women and children.
Aspects about the security and safety of transportation heavily influence the mobility choices made by women. Thus, investment in enhanced lighting, more robust security, and increased police presence in public transit could facilitate womens entry into the workforce. Economic growth would be greatly aided by encouraging female ridership and giving women and girls unrestricted access to services. The problem is that men design, oversee, and implement infrastructure for the most part, sometimes with little consideration for women.
With 200 female and male transportation specialists coming together in Leipzig, Germany in May 2018, the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) launched Women Mobilize Women, the first conference to empower women in transportation. Women Mobilize Women is a global network of women who are actively working to reform the mobility industry to make it more diverse. Women Mobilize Women also seeks to increase the knowledge of planners and decision-makers in the transportation industry about gender and transportation.
TUMI works to highlight and support the role of women in sustainable urban mobility to empower Female Change-Makers in the transportation industry and change mobility systems to meet the needs of women. By empowering women experts and encouraging behavioral change in the transportation industry and cities worldwide, TUMI aims to facilitate this transformative change.
The only municipality in Bangladesh to be chosen as a winner of the inaugural TUMI Global Urban Mobility Challenge 2018 is Singra (Natore District). We urgently need to apply for the TUMI Initiative Women Mobilize Women to support gender-responsive infrastructure around Bangladesh.
The best option for boosting womens safety and mobility would be to implement gender-smart transportation infrastructure design and urban planning, utilizing the Ride-sharing service (first introduced to Dhaka by Uber in 2016), Share-a-Motorbike (SAM) (first launchedonMay 7, 2016), now introduced "Pink SAM" for women. These options represent the growth, advancement, and progress of women in Bangladesh and are not a means of transportation. Tocreate a Smart Bangladesh, gender-smart infrastructure like Pink SAM is crucial for achieving sustainability.
When it comes to walking, cycling, taking public transportation, or using any other kind of transportation, a feminist transport system is a sustainable and safe system that enables women and girls to live and enjoy their cities. The system makes it possible to see how womens daily travel habits are influenced by extremely particular life circumstances and by their place in the prevailing economic system, which limits their freedom of movement.
A significant portion of our local and international work is devoted to gender-inclusive mobility and how we may apply a gender perspective to current transportation initiatives by fusing action-oriented approaches with mixed techniques to establish a Smart Bangladesh.To narrow the gap between the data, we have produced and actual action, we must collaborate with public transportation authorities to integrate a gender perspective into their systems and offerings. As part of this, multilateral development banks have been assisted in developing action plans for social inclusion and gender equality that include a gender perspective on road safety, public transportation infrastructure, and institutions.
Dr. Soma Dhar is an economist, based at the University of Chittagong, Aditya Chowdhury is a Research Assistant, (Department of Civil Engineering), based at the Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology(CUET)
