Ensuring European transportation works for women

The European Parliament adopted by 551 votes to 26, with 29 abstentions, a resolution on ensuring European transportation works for women.

Parliament reaffirmed the EU’s commitment to achieving gender equality in transport, underlining that concrete measures are needed to improve the safety, availability, accessibility and affordability of transport services and employment opportunities and working conditions in the sector for women in all their diversity.

Stressing the importance of gender mainstreaming in transport for achieving the ecological and digital transitions, Members called on the Commission, Member States and local authorities to effect intersectional gender mainstreaming in transport and urban mobility planning and to consult and involve women and girls in all their diversity, including women with disabilities, in decision-making processes in order to ensure that transport and city planning effectively meet women’s needs.

The resolution regretted the lack of standardised, sex- and gender-disaggregated transport data and gender analysis collected in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation across all modes of transport. The Commission is therefore called on the Commission to assess whether to include the sharing of gender data among transport actors in the Common European Data Space in order to address data gaps in transport and to inform policymaking. The causes of the under-representation of women in the transport sector should also be identified. The employment rate of women in the transport sector is around 22% at EU level.

Understanding women’s mobility and equity in transport

Underlining the differing expectations, travel patterns, needs and experiences of women as transport users, Parliament called for relevant legislation and a gender perspective in transport to fully integrate women’s perspectives, as they currently still perform more care duties in society, so as to increase sustainability and efficiency, and to better respond to society’s needs, including those of women with disabilities and from marginalised groups. It emphasised that urban and rural areas have to be designed to take account of the transport habits of all genders.

Inclusive mobility services and adequate infrastructure

Parliament called for measures to ensure the availability and affordability of sustainable transport modes, including bikes, to meet women’s needs and to ensure that comfortable, safe and stress-free multimodal journeys become a reality.

Due consideration must be given to integrating accessibility into legislation, as women with disabilities face specific barriers and discrimination when working or using transport.

Public transport companies are asked to consider gender-sensitive design, given that it is currently difficult for many women to reach bus handles, for example, or that it can be very difficult to enter and exit a metro train quickly with a small child or pushchair.

The resolution underlined that better infrastructure design, such as bus stations within short walking distance, greater bus frequency during off-peak hours, increased availability of services for women living in rural areas and stroller-friendly infrastructure can increase usability for women and encourage women to use public and more sustainable modes transport.

Members called for new aircraft to be equipped with lavatories with sufficient space to permit a passenger with a disability or an adult assisting a child to approach, enter and manoeuvre within the aircraft lavatory with ease and to be able to change the baby or assist a baby while using the facility, as this will better reinforce gender equality.

Ensuring women’s safety and security in transport environments

Members called for increased emphasis on safety and security in public transport and urban mobility planning, to be achieved by such means as adequate and sustainable street lighting and well-lit public transit stops in order to avoid situations where women have to travel through dark, eerie spots when commuting. They also called for ride-hailing apps to include a safety toolkit that would centralise all key safety information and features for riders and drivers in one place on the app. The resolution highlighted furthermore the need to include panic buttons, trusted contacts, anonymised address history, as well as in-app bike lane and pedestrian alerts.

Members noted that it could be useful to allow bus drivers to stop to let passengers disembark between bus stops within an already determined route in order to allow women and girls to arrive closer to their destinations at night.

Women and employment in the transport sector

Women transport workers at all levels can face barriers, such as gender bias and stereotyping, intersectional discrimination and improper work-life balance, which disproportionately affect women with responsibilities, and lower pay than men for equal work or work of equal value, as well as a lack of facilities or poorly adapted facilities, which enable harassment and violence. The Commission is called on to step up efforts to include gender-related provisions in all relevant legislation.

Members stressed the need to:

- eliminate all forms of discrimination, harassment, intimidation or violence in the workplace;

- combat discrimination and ensure the implementation of policies and existing legislation to address the gender pay gap and improve working conditions for everybody in the transport sector;

- use gender-sensitive language in all communications from public transport companies;

- combat gender-based occupational segregation that is underpinned and reinforced by the myth that women are unable or physically unsuited to performing certain duties, tasks or roles.

Raising awareness and encouraging behavioural change

Noting that women are traditionally under-represented in technical education and areas such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which are key to the development of the mobility and transport sector, Member States are called on to:

- promote targeted advertising campaigns encouraging women to apply for work in the transport sector;

- promote gender-responsive corporate governance and human resources policies, such as equal wage policies, on-site childcare facilities, flexible work schedules and the option of part-time work.