Week 3:Poor female representation/ bad transport design: gender and transport.

This lecture charts the inadequate relationship between gender and transport design. It indicates the changes which are now taking place in major transport policy forums and explores the prospects for further change.

The key readings are:

Users not losers: gender representation in transport design. @ http://www.geocities.com/margaret_grieco/womenont/gen_tran.html

Gender differences in perceived environmental correlates of physical activity @ http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/2/1/12

The first of these readings summarises the current situation on gender representation in transport provision and planning.

"The discussions of gender and participation which have emerged from Beijing give transport a new policy space in which it can operate. Transport interventions are to be harnessed to improvements in gender equity. At the heart of many issues of gender equity is the key transport concept of accessibility. In the developing world, donors have come to realise that if women are to take advantage of health services these need to be decentralised to the local level (Turner and Grieco, 1998). Decentralisation is at the heart of the Better Health For Africa initiative of the World Bank. Recognising women's restricted mobility and poor accessibility to services results in promoting different types of service provision and development. In Africa, two patterns have emerged: a) the movement from the building of large urban hospitals to the development of many more smaller local health service provisions and b) the greater use of women from the communities themselves who receive a basic training through development initiatives to equip them in health practice (these schemes usually make use of traditional birth attendants as core personnel). These changes have largely gone unrecorded by the transport community but there are clearly lessons that can be gained from putting the key question to any form of service provision: is this service sufficiently accessible to women with their customary mobility and accessibility constraints?

In the west, and in the bid to handle the strangulation of cities by congestion, transport planning is being asked to move towards a 'softer' role of the management of transport supply and demand, the development of robust regulatory frameworks and the servicing of wider social objectives such as poverty alleviation, increased participation, sustainable development and improving the status of women. Current policy from the significant donors in this sector speak of transport sector policy trying to include the following things:

Involving stakeholders

Securing finance

Restructuring institutions and involving the private sector

Integrating the environment and society

Improving regulations and operations

(EC Towards sustainable transport infrastructure, 1996)

The discussions around the involvement of stake holders and those around integrating the environment and society both lead towards greater participation of users in the development of transport options. Donors have begun to systematically utilise user group planning techniques in their new approaches to the governance of transport development. User group techniques can assist in the Information, Communication and Education aspects of gaining acceptance for new transport approaches, not least that of non motorised transport or in the developed world, perhaps, road pricing. However, user group planning techniques typically fail to ensure adequate gender representation most particularly within the development context as a review of World Bank sector documents quickly evidences. There is currently no participation protocol in the transport sector which ensures that each and every transport project considers the gender dimension and has gender representation in reaching that consideration. Though pressure for community participation should logically and rationally result in attention being given to gender, however, all to often 'community' participation is confined to men. In the bulk of present donor work on transport in Africa gender has not been specifically addressed, however, the case for gender inclusion is clear and there is a need for institutional protocols which ensure its consideration. At present it is easy as a task manager to overlook gender: no protocols are in place and no sanctions are applied to those who fail to consider the neglect of the transport needs of over half the world's population (Turner, Grieco, Guitink & Annorbah-Sharpe, 1998).

It is widely recognised that women are grossly underrepresented amongst transport professionals, in politics and in leadership positions in general both within the developed and the developing world. Changes along all of these dimensions are likely to see the better servicing of women's transport needs in the long run: in the short run, great improvements could be made by ensuring that women are appropriately represented on user groups and on focus groups to ensure that the relevant design and service feed back is provided to transport planners, transport operator and, perhaps, as importantly though rarely discussed, transport funders such as the donors.

The collection of high quality gender data is now possible, the gender disaggregation of data is a growing donor and popular demand, the global transparency of transport modes their successes and their failures is now a possibility; user participation is now a respectable and strengthening policy : in this new context, the gender aspect of user groups needs explicit consideration. The emerging social logic is clear and it has the potential to generate better and more appropriate transport systems.

Transport planning has largely operated on a male biased set of travel assumptions. Negative practices in respect of gender range from disattention to women's collective mobility and accessibility needs and the acceptance of existing gender discriminatory arrangements as the natural order to deliberate exclusion of women from transport forums and transport modes in accordance with local 'customary' practices. At present, transport development is investment led and not service led both in the developing and developed world. However, changes in the policy climate caused by the growing levels of congestion and the concern about the environment are causing a rethinking of habitual and customary relationships. The focus must, if congestion is to be conquered, be increasingly on mobility and accessibility. Similarly, and parallel, a focus on gender and transport is not primarily a focus on high tech transport forms but rather a focus on mobility and accessibility. Gender issues will increasingly emerge most particularly in the discussion of poverty alleviation. As of yet the professional transport community does not have a clear understanding of what effect poor accessibility has on the lives of the poor or how to improve their accessibility.

The UN is on record as saying that 70% of the world's women are poor. Yet, transport planning and policy currently has no data methodologies or planning protocols to reflect this reality in the way the sector develops transport to alleviate poverty. The key must lie within the domain of accessibility planning and in the identifying the wider range of journey purposes and the contexts in which these journeys are made. An enhanced version of the Oxford activity approach would provide a good starting point for the development of a suite of new methodologies appropriate to a service led approach (Jones et al. 1983). There is a new range of communication tools which can be used in developing and elaborating this methodology. Similarly, and complementarily, there are a new range of communication tools for improving the interaction between gender roles and transport which could be utilised within user group planning techniques.

In the development context, encouraging a culture of gendered user group planning requires considerable supporting activities. Communication competences require building and will be greatly enhanced by the development of appropriate feed back techniques and protocols. There is a need to build virtuous spirals in which users own contributions are visibly and transparently incorporated. This requires planners to focus on ways of incorporating visible and transparent protocols for accessing and making use of user group feedbacks so as to motivate user groups and to improve the transport development dialogue. The knowledge that their involvement has an impact on the design of the transport provision and the siting of services will encourage users to provide the feedback necessary for a well functioning set of relationships between the environment and society

"Background:
Limited research has been conducted on gender differences in perceived environmental correlates of physical activity (PA). The purpose of this study was to explore the potential role of gender in the link between perceived environment and PA.

Methods
Using a telephone-administered survey, data was collected on leisure time physical activity (LTPA), perceptions of the neighbourhood environment, and self-efficacy in a representative sample of 1209 adults from the province of Alberta, Canada. LTPA was regressed on ten measures of perceived neighbourhood environment and self-efficacy in a series of logistic regressions.

Results
Women were more likely than men to perceive their neighbourhood as unsafe to go for walks at night and to report seeing people being active in their neighbourhood. Conversely, women were less likely to perceive easy access to places for PA and availability of places to buy things within easy walking distance from home . Adjusting for age, education, income, and place of residence, access to places for PA and interesting things to look at in the neighbourhood , were associated with higher levels of LTPA in men. Access to places for PA and reporting seeing people being active were associated with increased LTPA among women. After controlling for sociodemographic variables and self-efficacy, the presence of shops and places to buy things within easy walking distance from home, interesting things to look at in the neighbourhood , and access to places for PA were associated with higher levels of LTPA in men. Among women, no significant relationships were observed between perceived environment and LTPA after adjusting for self-efficacy.

Conclusion
The results provide additional support for the use of models in which gender is treated as a potential moderator of the link between the perceived environment and PA. Further, the results suggest the possibility of differential interventions to increase PA based on factors associated with gender.

Before leaving the topic of gender representation in transport design, it is appropriate to turn to the experience of Heidelberg in Germany where gender participation strategies have been developed to engage women in civic design issues. The key findings from this experience have been:

Introducing the future workshop methodology has had several positive effects even before all the measures planned have been carried out successfully. Defining the problems and discussing appropriate measures has had considerable effects on the social structure and dynamics in the individual boroughs as well as the city as a whole. Participatory processes are now better known and appreciated by the local authority and the public. Individuals have developed numerous and detailed visions of the future of their city. A multitude of concrete problems have been addressed effectively. In 11 of the 14 boroughs the women's groups which have been founded after the first future workshop are still alive and working. A common focus of their work is community life - communication and networking in the borough towards cultural change and increased "community spirit" encouraging people to identify, share and help each other. Furthermore, these groups are relatively well known to the public and the local authorities.

The future workshop methodology can be recommended as a measure to enhance women's participation. The benefits for women and the city are obvious - women's daily lives and the community culture are improved, the city planning is more inclusive and of higher quality. Furthermore, one can expect a considerable and long-lasting capacity building effect: women who have participated in the future workshop process have to a large percentage continued to be involved in the borough's and city's politics.

From the experience in Heidelberg we can conclude that several measures need to be taken to increase and sustain women's participation in decision making:

1. Capacity Building, e.g. through a methodology like the future workshops.

2. Ensuring the effectiveness of women's participation: If women see that governments and local authorities do actually use their contributions and put them into practice, they will be willing to invest their time and energy in participatory planning processes.

3. Providing resources to cover participatory processes, e.g. funding for expenses and child care, office and meeting rooms etc.

4. Spreading the word: Media coverage of ongoing participatory processes should be improved, esp. regarding the work of smaller groups in boroughs; contributions to the plans and measures published and undertaken have to be clearly identified to encourage others to participate.

@ http://www.minuhemmati.net/eng/gender/hd_case_study.htm

For a review of gender issues in urban governance and urban design go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_society/pdf_gender/UNDP_Beall_gender_matters.pdf

For a German speaking literature on the need for gender sensitive governance in transport and in urban design go to http://www.cti.ac.at/cms/dateien/soz_esa.pdf

For information on the limited historical involvement of women in car design go to: http://www.core77.com/AWID/damsels.html

For an exploration of the links between gender issues and the american automobile industry go to http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Gender.htm

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