68195 A GENDER ASSESSMENT OF MUMBAI’S PUBLIC TRANSPORT MUMBAI, JUNE 2011 The World Bank This report was prepared as a part of the Mumbai Urban transport Project-2A by the World Bank in consultation with the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) with the help of Dalberg Global Advisors in 2010-2011. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................................................2 Note from the Authors ..................................................................................................................................................3 Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................................................4 Structure of the Report .................................................................................................................................................6 The Gender Imperative ..................................................................................................................................................7 Methodology ...............................................................................................................................................................10 Key Findings .................................................................................................................................................................13 A) Utilization of Transport Services.....................................................................................................................16 B) Organizing and Representation of Women’s Needs through Civil Society Organizations .............................25 C) Leadership by Women in Transport ...............................................................................................................26 D) Inclusion of Women Employees in Transport .................................................................................................27 A Gender Action Plan: Recommendations and Next Steps .........................................................................................28 Recommendations ..................................................................................................................................................29 Next Steps ...............................................................................................................................................................38 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................................41 Annex ...........................................................................................................................................................................44 1 Acknowledgements This assessment was carried out as a part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (Phase 2A) by the World Bank. The team involved in its preparation included Mr. Gaurav Gupta and Ms Antara Ganguly, of the Dalberg Global Advisors, the Consultants for this Project. This assignment was carried out with financial assistance availed from the Just in Time (JIT) Gender Action Plan Trust Fund of the World Bank. Bank staff Satya N Mishra, Social Development Specialist, was responsible for conceiving, planning and supervising the study, which was task managed by Huber Nove-Josserand and Atul Agarwal (TTLs) and supported by team members Ritu Sharma and Gizella Diaz. The Bank team sincerely appreciates the efforts made by Dalberg Global Advisors in carrying out the study. The task team also acknowledges the support received from various institutions including the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Undertaking (BEST), the Indian Railways, Indian Railways Police, and Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA). We specially thank Mr. Om Prakash Gupta, Mr. R. Pradhan and Mr. R.R.Deshpande of BEST, Mr. Raj Khilnani of Indian Railway Police, Mr. Vaishali Jagtap at International Centre for Research on Women, Mumbai and Professors Ochaney, George and Unnikrishnan of St. Xaviers Statistics Department, Mumbai for their support and cooperation for this study. Finally, the team would like to thank all the surveyors and survey respondents who took a keen interest in this study. 2 Note from the Study Team The importance of transport infrastructure in spurring the economic development of a city is accepted as a truism. However, with a few noted exceptions, scholarship and expertise on the role public transport plays in the improving the lives of the poor and less privileged is less widely available. This difference is also reflected in the ways in which public policy often treats transport in most cities of the world. Thankfully, Mumbai is not one of those cities. Mumbai has, in our opinion, a justified national reputation for affordable, efficient and widely available public transport. Images of crowded suburban trains and double-decker red BEST buses are not only icons of the energy and movement of the city but of the ways in which Mumbai public entities strive to enable the social and economic development of its people. Against this background, an analysis of the ways in which public transport does and does not meet the needs of women and girls is timely. Mumbai women and girls are held to be far more mobile than their counterparts in other Indian cities (a belief voiced by everyone we spoke with, including gender experts in other cities of the country) and use Mumbai’s trains and buses day and night, alone and with family, for work and for household errands. Their use of public transport and the degree to which their use meets their needs should be understood and documented as a first step towards developing an institutionalized gendered response. The study team would like to note a few important caveats. This project was designed to initiate debate and act as a first step towards developing a Gender Action Plan for Mumbai’s public transport- it is not a comprehensive academic study. The survey data, while targeted, is limited in coverage: o Small sample size o Limitations on geographic coverage Hence, the study provides a birds’ eye view of what women want and do not want from public transport – and given some guidance on what their priorities are. Although the study offers high-level recommendations, it recognizes several constraints facing public transport service providers including BEST Undertaking and the Mumbai Suburban Railways. The recommendations identified through the study have been positioned as actions in order to be considered further by the transport authorities. The study team is grateful to have been involved in this very interesting study, which perhaps is the first of its kind in the country. The study is but a first step and will require further study and consultation for preparing a policy note on gender mainstreaming of the urban transport in the country. 3 Executive Summary Our mandate for this study is to assess the public transport needs of women and girls in Mumbai with a view to identifying their priorities in using Mumbai public transport namely, Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Undertaking buses (henceforth known as BEST) and Mumbai Suburban Railways (consists of three lines: Western, Central and Habour). We conducted a literature review (a biography is available at the end of the report) as well as focus group discussions among women and girls – in slums, households and among college students. To test the hypotheses we developed through these conversations, we then conducted surveys where we recorded responses from 231 women and girls and 121 men. Given the focus on poor women, most of our survey respondents are men and women who live in slums. 80% of our surveyed sample’s monthly expenditure is less than Rs. 9,000 – suggesting that it is more representative of the needs of poorer travelers1. We believe that this gender assessment of Mumbai’s public transport is an essential aspect of social inclusion – and commend the MUTP-2A authorities for commissioning it. It is heartening to note that even though Mumbai’s public transport system is already regarded as one of the most accessible and efficient in the country, they are still considering opportunities for improvement. This assessment is the first step towards developing a Gender Action Plan for Mumbai’s transport entities, a long-term undertaking that is critical to institutionalize gender-inclusive and responsive transport planning and provision. This report provides: o A high-level understanding on women’s travel patterns that builds the foundation for understanding the ways in which they use public transport and the degree to which this is met by the public transport systems o A first-cut view on women’s priorities in public transport and potential ideas for addressing them We have summarized below six ideas that Mumbai transport entities can consider: 1. Off-peak Ladies Daily Pass: Given women’s travel patterns (walking is the most preferred mode of transport, more bus trips than train trips, more off-peak travel than men’s), we suggest that BEST consider an off-peak ladies only version of their 24 hour unlimited daily pass Next Steps: An in-depth pricing analysis based on current and potential women’s bus usage patterns 2. Women-only Bus Doors: Highlighted as the most uncomfortable/ unsafe step of bus journeys, boarding and alighting buses can be made more women-friendly by separating doorways for men and women Next Steps: Assess the impact of Bangalore buses in making boarding and alighting more comfortable for women through their women-only front doors 1 A 2007 World Bank study found that the average monthly income in Mumbai is Rs. 8,467 (Public Transport Subsidies and Affordability in Mumbai, Indiaâ€?, Cropper and Bhattacharya, 2007) 4 3. Increased and Improved Women’s Toilets: The poor provision of women’s toilets should be addressed not only to provide this basic facility (and human right) but to signal to women that Mumbai entities place equal value on their men and women customers. Initiatives such as public-private partnerships, advertising and outsourced toilet management have proven successful in the provision of toilets in some stations and public areas of Mumbai Next Steps: Prioritize our suggested recommendations on the basis of cost and ease of implementation 4. Gender-training for Bus Conductors: Women spoke in great numbers and detail on discourteous bus conductors who harass women and further, condone their harassment by men passengers. We suggest gender-training and sensitization for these bus conductors and have highlighted a case study (Delhi Transport Corporation and Jagori, a women’s NGO) that might provide further ideas Next Steps: Assess the success of Jagori training in improving DTC bus- conductors’ behavior towards women 5. Women conductors and drivers (especially bus-conductors): Women want to travel with women bus conductors and drivers and many would consider applying for these jobs as well. Already in place in Mumbai (train drivers only), Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, we encourage a scaling up of the initiative not only to improve the gender balance of BEST’s and Indian Railways’ employees profile but to signal their support for women’s empowerment through these powerful symbols Next Steps: Understand what is required to make bus conductor jobs viable and attractive to women like morning shifts, less-busy or shortened “starter routesâ€?) 6. More women commandos: Given the positive response to this scheme that was only launched this year, we suggest a thorough assessment of the performance of this initiative that can be used to both refine and scale up the deployment of women commandos in train stations and on trains across the city Next Steps: Conduct an impact assessment of the initiative with a view to understanding its successes and challenges The above findings and recommendations were discussed in a workshop held on June 7th, 2011 and was attended by transport experts, BEST and Indian Railways officials, civil society representatives, NGOs and World Bank members. Workshop participants raised additional issues and areas of research which have been recorded (details are provided in the Annex). 5 Structure of the Report Our analysis is divided into two sections: Section 1: Key Findings In our understanding, this is the first gender assessment of Mumbai’s public transport. There is a need, therefore, to develop a baseline understanding of the travel patterns of women and girls – how do they travel, when do they travel, do they travel alone or with dependents, what modes of transport do they use and for what purposes and to what destinations? We have developed initial answers to these questions in Section 1, identifying, in the process, areas where improvements can be made in meeting the transport needs of women and girls. Section 2: Suggested Recommendations We see this assessment as the first step in creating a Gender Action Plan, in itself a long-term process of institutionalizing a gender mandate and strategy to meet the transport needs of women and girls. Towards this end, we identify ten public transport priorities of women and girls that our work has revealed. We then prioritize these recommendations based on our understanding of implementation challenges and suggest six measures that are not only impactful from the perspective of women and girls but also, in our view, somewhat easier to consider for implementation. 6 The Gender Imperative In any social, political or business context, gender is an important consideration. In the context of developing cities like Mumbai, gender considerations in the provision of public services is crucial because it is the ability to uptake or utilize these services that often determines the location of households on the poverty line. In fact, gender analyses have become particularly relevant to the provision of public services. First, developing countries have increasingly recognized the importance of promoting universal human rights for all human beings2. For India, a signatory to the Committee on the Elimination of the Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), gender analysis is particularly relevant. Second, developing countries are also recognizing that enabling women and girls to utilize public services to become more empowered citizens has ancillary benefits for sustainable social and economic development. Transport is key to social and economic development especially in the way it mobilizes – literally – the poor who cannot afford private transport. Additionally, with rapid rates of urbanization, increased densification of cities and bottle necks in private road transport, the pressure on public transport continues to grow. Mumbai’s development agencies from MMRDA to BMC are developing new transport strategies to meet this challenge – from new roads to a new metro to more trains and buses. In this process, many lessons have been learned by assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of Mumbai’s current transport service. However, to date, no assessment has been done on Mumbai’s public transport that looks specifically at women and girls. Yet mobility is the first building block in enabling women to take up their rights and opportunities (especially in taking up non-traditional gender roles). Is such a gender assessment necessary? Do we have a good understanding of the transport needs of women and girls? Do they use public transport differently from men and boys? Are Mumbai’s trains and buses meeting the needs of women and girls? What needs remain unmet? What improvements would lead to increased usage? The purpose of this report is to initiate a dialog on these questions and begin to develop a picture of the role transport currently plays in women’s lives with an understanding of the further role it can play, given women’s specific needs. 2 UNFPA. (2010). “The Rights Based Approach.â€? United Nations Population Fund. http://www.unfpa.org/public/publications/pid/4919. 7 Mandate Our mandate for this study is to develop recommendations on a set of measures that can be taken to better meet the public transport needs of women and girls in Mumbai. These recommendations are based on a granular view of the public transport needs of women and girls in Mumbai including: ï‚· A high-level understanding of the kinds of trips women make and the modes, frequency and timings of transportation they prefer ï‚· Identification of the ways in which women’s trips differ from men’s ï‚· An understanding of what portion of women’s public transport needs remains unmet by existing public transport services ï‚· A view on women’s public transport priorities with regard to safety, affordability, convenience and comfort. We have assessed these priorities based on the degree to which they specifically impact women and girls. Therefore, we have not assessed issues like the punctuality, reliability and comfort of trains and buses (except where they make women feel less safe) because these issues affect men and women ï‚· A high level understanding of the degree to which gender inclusiveness is part of the agenda of Mumbai public transport Scope of Analysis Exhibit: Mumbai’s Population3 Mumbai’s Prevalence of Poverty4 Mumbai Western Eastern City Suburbs Suburbs Population Density 48,581 24,400 22,111 (/sq. km.) Number of 9 9 6 wards Average Slum Population as % Ward 372,530 571,372 578,559 of Total Ward Population Population <30% 30%-40% This study was carried out in Mumbai. Mumbai, 40%-50% formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian 50%-60% 60%-70% state of Maharashtra and is the commercial and >70% entertainment capital of India. It is the most populous city in the country and is home to important financial institutions such as RBI (Reserve Bank of India), BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) and headquarters numerous Indian companies. Mumbai is a highly congested city due to the large number of vehicles (personal cars, taxis, autos, buses, trucks and two- wheelers), hawkers and parked vehicles on the road. 3 Mumbai Human Development Report 2009, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, UNDP, Oxford University Press 4 Mumbai Human Development Report 2009, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, UNDP, Oxford University Press 8 The scope of our analysis is women in the greater Mumbai area (that is covered by the suburban trains and buses). Because of our client’s desire for a specific focus on poor women and girls, we have conducted a majority of our research in the slums in Western and Eastern suburbs of Mumbai – where the majority of the poor in Mumbai live. Throughout this report we have used the term “womenâ€? to refer to women and girls above the age of 16 as several of our survey respondents are students between the ages of 17 and 21. However, there is a need for a deeper understanding of the public transport needs of school-children, many of them use public transport to go to better schools that are father away from their homes. An interesting and important gender analysis in this regard would be to compare the education outcomes of girls who use public transport to go to schools farther away from home with those of girls who walk to their neighbourhood school. Our focus for the study was on public buses and trains, however, other modes of public transport available in the city but not included in the study are black and yellow metered taxis and auto- rickshaws (allowed to operate only in suburban Mumbai). 9 Methodology We followed a three step process for this study: Step 1: Conducting a literature review We started by conducting a comprehensive literature review of available literature on women and public urban transport, both in Indian cities and in other cities in the developing world. In this step, we identified established findings on women’s urban public transport needs and uncovered key trends in what is being done to meet those needs by transport authorities. This enabled us to develop hypotheses Overview of Literature Review We undertook a literature review of scholarship and expertise on women and public urban transport available in the public domain. Both the World Bank Gender and Transport Resource Guide and GTZ’ Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-Makers in Developing Cities serve as good starting points, not only to understand the themes that are central to this field but in obtaining references to other studies that these organizations have supported or contributed to. United Nations Commission for Europe Gender and Transport Projects also deserves mention in this category. In India, we drew strongly from four studies: ï‚· Baker, J. (2005). “Urban Poverty and Transport: The Case of Mumbai.â€? World Bank Policy Research working paper. ï‚· Maunder, D. et al. (1997). “Attitudes and Travel Behavior of Residents in Pune, India.â€? Transportation Research Board, 76th Annual Meeting, D.C. ï‚· Peters, D. (1998). “Breadwinners, Homemakers and Beasts of Burden: A Gender Perspective on Transport and Mobility.â€? Institute for City and Regional Planning (ISR), Berlin, Germany. ï‚· Srinivasan, S. (2004). “Influence of Residential Location on Travel Behavior of Women in Chennai, India.â€? Conference Report - Research on Women’s issues in Transportation, Vol1 The main findings of these studies were common: women tend to use public transport less than men, tend to walk more than men and undertake a greater share of non-work trips than men. These findings were borne out by our survey results as well. As such, we have shown them together in our Key Findings section, drawing on examples from the literature review and our survey, as appropriate. A notable mention in this section is a paper by Geetam Tiwari and Anvita Anand (IIT Delhi, 2005) Gendered Perspective of the Shelter– Transport–Livelihood Link: The Case of Poor Women in Delhi that shows the impact of poorly available affordable transport on women’s abilities to earn their livelihood. We also drew on the 2009 Mumbai Human Development Report by MMRDA to develop an understanding of Mumbai’s public transport infrastructure and plan. comprehensive bibliography is available in the end of the report. A10 that we could then test in Steps 2 and 3. Step 2: Conducting Interviews Interviews: We conducted interviews with gender experts, transport officials and practitioners to understand the relevant issues, obtain data and further develop our hypotheses. For example, to understand all the nuances of the issue of safety on trains and buses, in addition to surveying customers, we also interviewed women commandos on railway platforms, discussed the issue with transport journalists and with transport authorities like BEST and the Railway police. (A list of selected interviews is available in the Annex). Exhibit: Images from a Focus Group Discussion (Sahaydri Nagar, Vashi Naka – 19th October, 2010) Step 3: Developing and administering our research instruments (focus groups and surveys) Focus Groups: To test our What is a slum? hypotheses, we ran two focus There are two widely used definitions of slums in Maharashtra: groups among slum-dwelling A compact settlement of at least 20 households with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly of temporary nature, crowded together usually with women in Mumbai. We inadequate sanitary and drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions – developed a set of general National Sampling Survey Organization (part of Ministry of Statistics and talking points that the Programme Implementation) Any area is or may be a source of danger to health, safety or convenience of facilitator then discussed with the public of that area or of its neighbourhood, by reason of that area having a group of 10-12 women. This inadequate or no basic amenities, or being unsanitary, squalid overcrowded enabled us to form some or otherwise; or the buildings in any area, used or intended to be used for human habitation hypotheses on the main issues area i) in any respect, unfit for human habitation; or important to women and girls ii) by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding faulty arrangement and design of in Mumbai and brainstorm such buildings, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation light or sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors, solutions that we could then detrimental to the health, safety or convenience. – Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 For the purpose of our study, we interviewed people who live in tenements that are referred to as slums in common parlance or in some cases, chawls. 11 test in greater detail through our survey. Survey: We developed a survey based on our learnings from the literature review, interviews and focus groups. The survey was orally administered to 223 women and 121 men almost all of whom live in slums (and were aged from 17 and up). We worked with two sets of surveyors: Surveyors associated with International Centre for Research on Women: Five surveyors who have experience conducting surveys for gender and reproductive rights issues went to households in slums in the Eastern Suburbs between 4pm and 6pm to orally administer the survey in Hindi and Marathi. They also went to train stations and bus stations to interview women public transport users who do not live in slums. Students from St. Xaviers Statistical Department: Fifteen 2nd year MSc Honours students orally administered 73 surveys to women and 21 surveys to men in their neighbourhoods (all of them live in Western Suburbs). The only criterion they were given is that the women and men must be slum- dwellers. Exhibit: Demographic breakdown of survey sample Office/ Street/ Home- Domestic Business Market Student Laborer Others Total Maker Worker Professional Vendor Per F 23 48 19 34 55 22 7 208 Category Surveyed M - 53 15 17 1 20 12 118 Office/ Street/ Home- Domestic Business Market Student Laborer Others Total Maker Worker Professional Vendor F 8.2% 28.3% 7.5% 15.1% 27.7% 11.9% 1.3% 100% (159) Eastern Suburb M - 50% 12.2% 14.3% - 17.3% 6.1% 100% (98) F 17.5% 7.5% 17.5% 20% 20% 7.5% 10% 100% (40) Western Suburb M - 16.6% 16.6% 8.3% - 25% 33.4% 100% (8) F 33.3% - - 22.2% 33.3% - 11.2% 100% (9) City Proper M - 25% 12.5% 25% 12.5% - 25% 100% (12) The above methodology was supplemented by a workshop held on June 7th, 2011 and attended by transport experts, BEST and Indian Railways officials, civil society representatives, NGOs and World Bank members. A detailed write-up on the participants’ thoughts and views is presented in the Annex. 12 Key Findings To conduct a needs assessment of public transport needs of women and girls in Mumbai, we asked six questions organized around the following four principles of gender-inclusion: A) utilization of existing services, B) organizing and representation of the needs of women through grass-roots and civil society organizations, C) leadership by women in the sector, D) inclusion of women employees. These principles have been drawn from a synthesis of gender-responsive frameworks5. Exhibit: Four Principles and Six Key Questions 1 How do women use transport differently from men? 2 Utilization What are women’s unmet needs? Main area of focus 3 What services are women not using? What are the gender needs of 4 Has civil society been engaged to Mumbai’s Organizing understand, represent the transport urban needs of women? transport? 5 Are there women leaders in transport Leadership entities? 6 What proportion of transportation Inclusion staff (management and operation) are women? A) Utilization of Existing Services: This principle explores the extent to which women utilize existing services and their degree of satisfaction with them. It also assesses whether all women’s transport needs are met. B) Organizing and Representation of Women’s Needs through Civil Society Organizations: This principle examines the degrees to which the voices of women’s organizations are heard in policy-making and their organizing power leveraged to disseminate information and services. The importance of this 5 These principles have been selected from a review of guidelines on gender-inclusion in the developing world from the following organizations: World Bank, (Gender and Transport) http://www4.worldbank.org/afr/ssatp/Resources/HTML/Gender-RG/module1/index.html; Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/conceptsandefinitions.htm; United Nations Development Fund for Women, http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/women_poverty_economics/gender_budgets.php; United Nations Population Fund, http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2010/hrba/module_5.pdf 13 principle lies in connecting policy-making and service provision to citizenry through civil society organizations that already have the trust, knowledge and interest of the communities they represent. C) Leadership by Women in the Transport Sector: This principle assesses the degree to which women are represented in senior management and leadership of transport entities and transport policy. D) Inclusion of Women Employees in Transport Entities: This principle assesses the representation of women in transport entities in order to develop a view on the degree to which they are open to and encouraging of women’s recruitment and retention. We defined trips as all destination-oriented travel between home and the destination. To understand the nuances and particular challenges of women’s trips, we asked questions about every step of the trip, as shown below: Exhibit: Analysis across All Steps of Bus and Train Trips Journey to At the Aboard the At the Journey to Home Destination Departure Station Departure Station Train/Bus Destination Station Destination Walk/Auto/Cab/Bus Buying Ticket Boarding Train/Bus Exiting Station Walk/Auto/Cab/Bus Ease of access to Ease of access to connecting mode of Harassment-free queue? Adequate time to board? Using Toilets connecting mode of transport? transport? Affordable fares? Hygiene? Single/monthly tickets? Aboard Train/Bus Distance from home? Distance to destination? Sufficient services during Luggage assistance? Availability? Streets well-lit? off-peak hours? Streets well-lit? Getting to and Provision for pregnant Using Skywalks Waiting at Platform women/women carrying children? Ladies compartment Well-lit? waiting area marked? Alighting Train/Bus Baby-changing Do late trains/ buses force women to travel for Adequate time to alight? Facilities longer in the dark? Availability? Access to security staff? Before we present our findings, we would like to note that consideration of women’s needs certainly seems to be part of the agenda of Mumbai transport entities. Newspaper articles on transport reveal a keen interest in promoting women’s utilization of public transport. We have summarized below some recent efforts in this regard6: 6 “Mumbai‟s Ladies Special leaves the commuter sex pests behindâ€?, The Sunday Times, September 19, 2009; “Women commandos to crack down on crime in Mumbai trainsâ€?, Earth Times, September 4, 2007, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/More-seats-for-women-sr- citizens-on-BEST-buses/articleshow/6193505.cms 14 Exhibit: Measures Taken by BEST and Indian Railways to Meet Women’s Transport Needs Reserved Seats for Women on BEST buses in Mumbai Efforts to meet Women’s needs on Trains (% of all seats, 2010) 25% • Women’s only compartments: Two out of twelve carriages (each carriage has 2 compartments) are currently reserved for women on every train 10% • Female Commando Railway Protection Force (2010): A team of Mumbai policewomen trained in unarmed conflict & martial arts 6 (also handling carbines & AK-47) have been trained & assembled to tackle “crimes committed against women commuters on suburban Additional seats 4 railway network of the metropolisâ€? 16% • “Ladies’ Special Trainsâ€?: There are currently six Ladies’ Special trains in the Mumbai suburban train network, two on each of the three routes 4 Previous quota 6 6 2 Double- AC Buses Ordinary Buses Decker Buses 15 A) Utilization of Transport Services Finding: Mumbai fares well amongst developing country peers on the utilization of public transport in general. 7 Exhibit: Developing Cities’ Use of Public Transport- percentage share of public transport in daily trip-making 70 60 47 45 22 20 Kuala Wuhan Dakar Chennai Mumbai Mexico Lampur City Finding: Women walk more than men across household expenditure categories. 8 Exhibit: Average Number of Trips Made per Person per Week, by Gender 22 +30% Men 20 16 Women 12 7 5 n = 344 Public transport Walk Other (Bus and Train) This is especially true for poorer women who walk more than women from higher income households. Our survey additionally revealed that women are responsible for a greater number of non-work related trips involving household duties, performing 30% more non-work related trips than men. 7 “Driving forces in developing cities‟ transportation systems: Insights from selected casesâ€?, MIT, 2006. 8 Survey done for this study, Mumbai, 2010 16 Exhibit: Proportion of Women Across Expenditure Exhibit: Non-Work Trips per Person per 9 10 Categories who Walk as Main Mode of Transport Week by Gender 30% more trips by women 40% 39% 21 34% 16 n = 223 n = 344 <5K 5-10K 10-15K Men Women This is in keeping with earlier studies which show that the poor walk more than non-poor, and that, women walk more than men. 11 Exhibit: Income-Disaggregated Proportion of Workers Whose Main Mode to Work is Walking 90% Monthly Household Income 80% <5K 70% 5K-7.5K 7.5K-10K 60% 10K-20K >20K 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% n = 344 1-2KM 2-3KM 3-5KM 5KM< Length of Trip to Work 9 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai, 2010 10 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai, 2010 11 “Urban Poverty and Transport: The Case of Mumbaiâ€?, Judy Baker et al. World Bank Policy Research working paper, 2005. 17 12 Exhibit: Main Modes of Transport by Gender 90% 2% 80% 0% 70% 0% 13% 60% 49% 2% 19% 0% 50% 55% 40% 35% 30% 47% 30% 49% 20% 36% 23% 28% 26% 10% 12% 0% Men Women Men Women Men Women Bamako, Mali Pune, India Ashgabat, Turkmenistan Bicycle Public Transport Walk Finding: Women travel to a greater number of destinations for a more diverse range of purposes. Gender and transport studies across the world have shown than women make more trips than men – for a more diverse set of reasons. Men tend to travel from home to work and back with one additional trip in some cases. Most women travel to several destinations per everyday as they run household errands, escort children and other dependents to school, doctors and on social/ religious visits. Women’s trips are known as trip-chains because then tend to go to more than one destination when they travel and often they go from one destination to the next on the same trip. 13 Exhibit: Men & Women’s Trip Patterns Work Additional School stops Shop/ market Home Doctor Home Work Additional Paying errands bills Previous studies have already established that Indian women trip-chain more than Indian men. 12 „“Breadwinners, Homemakers and Beasts of Burden: A Gender Perspective on Transport and Mobilityâ€?, ICR, Berlin, Germany, 1998. 13 Survey done for this study, 18 14 Exhibit: Trip Destination Diversity by Bus and Train Respectively 15% Social 100% 2% 100% 5% Recreation Other 3% 17% 5% Hospital 7% 3% Religious Religious 8% 4% 9% Other Hospital 4% 18% Shopping Recreation 4% 21% Social 10% School 30% 7% School 14% Shopping 18% 65% 52% Work 47% Work 28% Women Men Women Men Finding: Women travel with dependants more than men do. International case studies show that women travel more with dependents (usually children but sometimes with senior citizens as well) than men. In London, for example, 67% of women’s trips are with children compared with 27% of men15. 16 Exhibit: London Case Study: Number of Annual Education Related Trips with Child Dependents 67 Women Men +148% 27 Our survey revealed that not only do women make more trips with dependents, they also spend more on dependents’ travel than men. Conversations with focus group women revealed that women usually have less to spend on themselves out of a given budget because they must provide for children’s transport out of that budget as well. 14 “Gender and Urban Transport: A Guide for Policy Makers “, GTZ, 2007; “Gender and Transport in Developed Countriesâ€?, Working Paper on Gender Perspectives for Earth Summit, UNED, 2002 15 Gender Equity Scheme 2007-2010, Transport for London, Mayor of London, 2006 16 National Travel Survey, London, 2005 19 Exhibit: Average Monthly Transport Expenditure on Dependants, in Rupees 17 Women 558 Men +18% 471 386 +54% 250 n = 344 <5k 5-10k Finding: Women travel more during off-peak hours than men. A review of existing literature suggests that women tend to travel more during off-peak hours than men (for part-time jobs, household errands, escorting of children and other dependents, social visits). However, there is little literature looking at gender and time of travel. Our survey revealed that, in fact, a majority of women travel during the afternoon off-peak hours of 11am and 4pm. Exhibit: Women and Men’s Travel in Peak and Off-Peak Hours in Trains and Buses (% of daily trips by public transport)18 % of bus and train users traveling regularly 90% Women travel more than men 80% during daytime off-peak hours 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% Men Women n =305* (women = 191, 10% men = 114) Peak Off-peak Peak Off-peak 6:30 am 11am 4pm to After to 11am to 4 pm 7:30pm 7.30pm * Note: 1) Omits all surveyed users who did not report traveling aboard either buses or trains. Finding: Women use buses more than trains. Mumbai is unique in offering both bus and a local train service. We hypothesized that women would use buses more than trains partly because they are more easily available (especially to households with lower income as shown below) and partly because the neighbourhood/locality coverage of buses is greater than that of trains. 17 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai 2010 18 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai 2010 20 Exhibit: Income-disaggregated Average Walking Time from Household to Bus Stop and Train Station Respectively19 20-30min. 1% 1% 1% 5% 10-20min. 7% 7% 7% 3% 30% > 20 mins. 34% Time taken to walk to… 43% 47% 95% 97% <10min. 91% 92% 92% 70% <= 20 mins. 66% 53% 57% <5K 5-7.5K 7.5-10K 10-20K >20K <5k 5-7.5k 7.5-10k 10-20k Income level (Rs. month) Our hypothesis was confirmed when we found that women made 45% more trips by bus than train, across income categories. This difference increased to 67% for households with incomes less than Rs 5,000 a month. Buses also form a greater portion of women’s total trips than men’s total trips. Exhibit: Income-disaggregated Ratios of Average Number of Bus vs. Train Trips per Week by Women20 n = 223 Exhibit: Bus Trips as a Proportion of Total Trips by Gender21 27% Train 35% 73% Bus 65% n = 344 Men Women 19 “Urban Poverty and Transport: The Case of Mumbaiâ€?, Judy Baker et al. World Bank Policy Research working paper, 2005. 20 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai, 2010 21 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai 2010 21 Finding: Bus travel is significantly more expensive than train travel. Both BEST and Indian Railways offer monthly passes that provide discounts on daily tickets to passengers. However, train tickets are subsidized far more than bus tickets: a monthly train pass is 15 times the price of a daily ticket whereas a monthly bus pass is 40 times the price of a daily ticket. In the figures below we have compared the price of a monthly pass for a distance of 10-12 km. In the case of the train (left hand side figure), 15 trips is the break-even point where the price of a daily ticket equals the price of the monthly pass. This means that if a person makes more than fifteen trips, it is cheaper for him or her to buy a monthly pass. In the case of the bus (right hand side figure), the break-even point is forty trips. Until a person makes forty trips a month, it is cheaper for him or her to buy daily tickets. A monthly pass holder making twenty trips a month pays an additional twelve rupees a trip (over the price of a daily ticket). Exhibit: Comparison of Monthly Pass Affordability for a 10-12km Trip – Suburban Train and Bus (IRCTC and BEST websites, 2010) 15 100 14 90 13 12 80 Price per trip (Rs.) Price per trip (Rs.) 11 70 10 9 60 8 50 7 Savings per trip 6 40 Daily 5 Rs 1.25 Ticket 30 4 Rs 3.75 Savings per trip 3 Rs 3.12 20 Daily Rs 12 Ticket 2 Monthly 10 Monthly 1 Pass Rs 4 Pass 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Number of trips Number of trips That the high price of bus passes can be prohibitive for bus travel was confirmed by conversations with focus groups we conducted in two slum neighbourhoods in the Eastern Suburbs. Several women noted that they would use the bus much more for travel if it was made affordable. They also pointed out that cheap bus travel would enable them to better access the local trains which in turn could connect them to better paying jobs in South and Central Mumbai. Please note: we have not made an assumption that buses compete with trains for the same passengers. 22 Finding: 80% of women feel safe at all steps of bus and train journeys – except when boarding and alighting. We found that safety is not the biggest concern for women in Mumbai when it comes to transport. More than 80% of women feel safe at all stages of their journeys – except for boarding and alighting where 64% of women train users and 48% of women bus users feel unsafe. Our focus group discussions also brought up the discomfort of crowded trains and buses. Conversations with transport gender experts revealed that Mumbai is considered one of the safest Indian cities in terms of public travel for women. This was echoed in our conversations with the women we surveyed and had focus group discussions with. Exhibit: Women Respondents Indicating Particular Steps of their Public Transport Journeys are “Unsafeâ€?22 64% 48% 18% 19% 19% 22% 21% 17% 11% n = 223 Journey to and Buying a ticket Waiting at Boarding the On the train Journey to and Waiting at Boarding/getting On the bus f rom the station the platf orm train/getting f rom bus stop the bus stop of the bus of f the train Train Bus Finding: There are not enough women’s toilets and a greater proportion of them are non-functional. Assuming that 25% of Mumbai’s 6.3 million daily train users are women, Mumbai train stations currently have 1 men’s toilet per 5,500 men users and 1 women’s toilet per 9,000 women users23. According to the International Plumbing Code, public service areas like train stations should provide at least 1 toilet per 500 users. Interestingly, Indian Railways standards for stations are even higher with 1 per 111 for smaller stations and 1 per 167 for bigger stations. 22 Survey done for this study,, Mumbai, 2010 23 Observer Research Foundation. (2010). “Sanitation Facilities at Mumbai Suburban Railway Stations.â€? http://www.observerindia.com/cms/sites/orfonline/modules/report/ReportDetail.html?cmaid=19162&mmacmaid=19163 23 Exhibit: Comparison of Present Toilet Availability with International and Indian Railways Standards24 42,568 Women Men 28,293 14,189 9,450 9,431 3,150 174 854 Currently present Recommended by Recommended by Indian Recommended by Indian (verified by ORF study) Intl. Plumbing Code Railways for A,B stations Railways for C,D stations W: 1 toilet per 1 toilet per 500 1 toilet per 167 1 toilet per 111 9,000 users users users users *M: 1 toilet per 5,500 users Note: 1) *Men’s toilet figures includes urinals (Women and Men have 125 toilets each in Central Railways, Men have 56 toilets in Western Railways) 2) We have assumed that 25% of Mumbai’s 6.3 million daily train passengers are women 3) Formula for A, B stations: 4* N(db)/ 200 where N(db) = 0.3 maximum passengers a day; C,D stations: 4*N(db)/200 where N(db)=0.45 maximum passengers a day In addition, the study found that 93% of toilets that are closed or out of service are women’s toilets. Exhibit: Selected Pictures of Out-of-Service Women’s Toilets at Mumbai Railway Stations25 24 ORF Study on Sanitation on Mumbai‟s Suburban Railways, Ministry of Railways, “Work Manual- Minimum Amenities- Passenger Amenities, Stations and Yards http://indianrailways.gov.in/financecode/IRWM/worksmanualCh4_data.htm#ANNEXURE, 25 Ibid. 24 B) Organizing and Representation of Women’s Needs through Civil Society Organizations Finding: Mumbai entities already leverage women’s NGOs – BEST and Indian Railways can do this to a greater extent and through a more institutionalized process. India has a strong network of women’s organizations that represent the needs and rights of women. Some of these organizations are already working with transport authorities: Exhibit: Examples of Mumbai entities working with Women’s NGOs26 EXAMPLE: Mumbai Police’s engagement with the EXAMPLE: Indian Railways’ engagement with National Campaign against Violence against Women and Girls Railway Users Consultative Committee (NRUCC) and the (VAW) Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh (MRPS) • In 2007, 13 women’s organizations, along • In 2010, Central Railways agreed with social activist Shabana Azmi, to build 10 new f oot over-bridges approached the Commissioner of Police to (FOB) to reduce trespassing protest against a molestation case, and to incidents and cope with increasing demand police action f or dealing with crowds violence against women • They identif ied key stations where crowding has increased and plan to • In 2008, the Mumbai Police and the build new f oot over-bridges at a cost Campaign against Violence against Women of Rs. 10 crore and Girls (VAW Campaign) launched the 103 helpline- women in any kind of distress or • Following an incident at Vikhroli threat of violence can call this helpline and station where 4 people were run expect police to arrive on the spot instead of over by local trains, the NRUCC met with the CR general manager, who having to go to the police station assured them that a f ootbridge at Vikhroli would be completed in the next 6 months, at that the f inances had already been sanctioned •To date, the helpline has received 3462 actionable calls, most of which were made • The MRPS has been f ollowing this issue as well, and had sent written by women. requests to the authorities about this problem. “So far, 325 people have been killed at Vikhroli station this yearâ€? “Buses in Mumbai are soon going to have TVs installed on board- - Subhash Gupta, NRUCC (“Rly promises FOB at Vikhroli by next yearâ€?, we are pushing for 15% of screentime to be dedicated to social Times of India, Monday 22 nd Nov 2010) messaging, including raising awareness about the 103 helplineâ€? -Nandita Shah, Akshara (a women’s NGO involved in the Campaign “We hope the work begins soon and goes on at a good pace so that against Violence against Women and Girls) it can benefit commutersâ€? (Dalberg interview Oct 2010) - Ramchandra Karve, MRPS (“Thane st. FOB gets green signalâ€?, Mumbai Mirror, Friday 26 th Nov 2010) Mumbai transport authorities can improve their utilization of and coordination with women’s NGOs who are well-placed to understand, represent and conduct outreach to Mumbai women. For example, Transport for London, in preparation for their 2007-2010 Gender Equality Scheme, took several steps to ensure maximum engagement with as many stakeholders as possible, including: • Holding a London-wide event for 150 key stakeholders, including women’s NGOs, local authorities, and the voluntary sector (designed to gather views of key transport issues for women and men) • Conducting one-on-one interviews with key opinion formers, such as local authorities 26 http://www.aksharacentre.org/prog18.2.htm; http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/times-of-india-the/mi_8012/is_20101123/commuters-fury- boils-4-run/ai_n56356009/ http://mumbaimirror.com/index.aspx?Page=article§name=CITY%20- %20Briefs§id=35&contentid=20101126201011261132438456f632fb4 25 • Consulting with the TfL’s Women’s Staff Network Group C) Leadership by Women in Transport Finding: There are very few women leaders and in senior positions in most government entities, including BEST and Indian Railways and MMRDA. We have pieced together some insights from interviews with senior staff at Indian Railways and BEST: • 2 out of 16 BEST committee members are women (12.5%) • 1 out 34 Indian Railways Board members is a woman • Women constitute less than 10% of Officer and above levels • Of the roughly 500 engineers at BEST, less than 10 are women Women in Leadership Roles at BEST and Indian Railways Women in BEST Committee Women in Indian Railways Board* (from BEST Undertaking website, 2010) (from Indian Railways website, 2010) Sanjay Govind Potnis Railway Board (Chairman, BEST Committee) Vivek Sahai (Chairman) Suresh Kumar V N Tripathi Rahul Shewale A P Mishra Sanjiv Handa (Chair, Standing Vilas Chawri Sunil Shinde (Member) (Member) Vivek Sahai Samar Jha Committee) General Managers Mohan Loke- Sunil Gana- Suhas Samant -gaonkar -charya Pradeep Kumar (Member) RN Verma (L/A) MS Jayanth HC Joshi (L/A) (Member) (Member) VN Tripathi AP Mishra RK Upadhyay AK Vohra Chandrakant Dilip Patel Ravi Raja Pugaonkar (Member) (Member) CP Verma HC Joshi (Member) SK Budhalakoti RN Verma S Presila Anil UCD Shreni PB Murthy Amarnath NS Bhavna Koli Nitin Salagre Kasturirangan Kadam (Member) (Member) (Member) Keshav Chandra KK Saxena KBL Mittal Kuldeep Chaturvedi Masud AK Shivji Singh Harun Y Khan Deepak Krishan Pompa Babbar Vindhyanchal VK Manglik Ansari Singh (Member) (Member) (Member) Neeraj Kumar AK Rawal AK Goel Ashima Singh Mohsin HH Haider AK Malhotra Pankaj Kumar RL Gupta SC Singhal (Member) Note: * Used Indian Railways leadership as a proxy f or Mumbai Suburban Railways 26 D) Inclusion of Women Employees in Transport Finding: There is limited gender-disaggregated information available on employment in transport bodies, though it appears that there are very few women employed in the transport sector. The representation of women employees in the bodies that provide transport services is as important as having women in leadership positions. Our interviews with senior officials at BEST and Indian Railways suggest that gender-disaggregated information on employees is not collected, making it difficult to conduct an assessment of the degree to which women are represented. However, there are indications that representation of women is not as high as it should be, especially at higher levels: Exhibit: Selected Statistics on Representation of Women Among BEST and Indian Railways Employees27 Percentage of women employees in Indian Railways (75,091 5.3% out of 1,412,434 employees) Percentage of women in Indian Railways Board (1 out of 34) 3% Percentage of women in BEST Committee (2 out of 16) 12.5% Percentage of women engineers ( estimated at 5 out of 500) 1% Percentage of women in Officer+ grades (estimated) 10% 27 Interviews with officials, websites 27 A Gender Action Plan: Recommendations and Next Steps An examination of existing expertise on making public transport more gender-inclusive and responsive makes clear the importance of having a Gender Action Plan –an institutionalized, well-championed and well-publicized gender mandate and strategy28. Recognizing that women and girls have different transport needs is the first step towards this end – developing an institutionalized response that sets targets (increasing the utilization of public transport by women and girls, for example) and measures impact (e.g. are women using public transport more?, are previously-excluded women now using public transport?) is crucial. Undertaking this gender assessment is an excellent first step towards this end. We commend MUTP-2A for including this assessment in their agenda and have suggested some next steps towards institutionalizing this work. As first steps in the Gender Action Plan, we have identified, based on our research and analysis, ten recommendations that have been identified as most popular in meeting the gender specific transport needs of women and girls. A key point to remember here is that women and girls want and prioritize several points that men and boys do – including a greater number of trains and buses, better pedestrian infrastructure (pavements and roads), better taxi and auto service (greater reach and more reliability) and cheaper fares. The first of these – a greater number of trains and buses – has been, in fact, the first response from everyone we have spoken with and has been widely discussed and documented in transport related news articles as well. However, given the mandate of our study, we have selected the ten recommendations below based on their importance to women and girls specifically. 28 World Bank Gender and Transport Resource Guide (http://www4.worldbank.org/afr/ssatp/Resources/HTML/Gender-RG/index.html), GTZ Gender and Urban Transport: Smart and Affordable Module 7a Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-makers in Developing Cities (http://www.itdp.org/documents/7aGenderUT%28Sept%29300.pdf) United Nationals Commission for Europe Gender and Transport Projects (http://www.unece.org/trans/theme_gender.html), Inter-American Development Bank Socially Inclusive and Gender-Responsive Transport Projects (http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/Gender-Responsive-Transport-Projects/default.asp) International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD) Gender and Transport (http://www.ifrtd.org/new/issues/gender.php) 28 Recommendations Recommendation Description Consider instituting women only To address women’s difficulties in getting on and off buses, Mumbai can follow Bangalore’s example bus doorways of reserving the front door of the bus for women Assess how best to implement Increase the number of and improve the condition of women’s toilets at all suburban stations additional and improved women’s toilets at train stations Assess the viability of improved Increase and improve station and stop lighting to increase the comfort and safety of women travelling lighting of skywalks, stations and outside of daylight hours stops Consider additional gender Conduct “gender sensitizationâ€? training for BEST bus drivers and conductors to enable them to sensitivity training for bus better serve the needs of their women customers conductors Consider increasing availability of Introduce microphones in buses so that conductors can announce stops for new passengers information aboard transport Assess the viability of reserving As part of the ongoing MUTP Phase II improvements, consider increased women-only carriages for additional train carriages for peak hours women Consider expansion of women Maintain the cadre of women commandos on Mumbai suburban train platforms and trains as women commandos program commuters feel more comfortable approaching them Assess the viability of providing Launch a city-wide initiative to build and maintain pedestrian walkways especially along roads and maintaining better footpaths connecting train stations to bus stops and neighborhood centers Assess benefits of recruiting Launch a recruitment scheme to recruit women conductors and drivers with morning shifts, special women drivers and conductors training and mentoring support from senior conductors Keeping in mind the challenging constraints both BEST Undertaking and Mumbai Suburban Railways are under, we undertook a prioritization process where we ranked these 10 recommendations as an initial exercise and made some estimates on what is likely to be high impact and relatively easy to implement (Please note: this would need significant further analysis and are only thought starters at this stage): Exhibit: Prioritization of Recommendations High Introduce off-peak unlimited ticket Women-only bus doorways Ease of Implementation Improved lighting of bus and train stations Train bus conductors Trip Recruit women drivers information on and conductors buses Deploy more women commandos Reserve more train Improve women’s toilets at train compartments for stations women Provide and maintain footpaths Low Low High Level of Impact 29 This enabled us to identify the six most actionable recommendations that we believe Mumbai transport authorities should focus on: 1. Conduct a feasibility assessment of off-peak unlimited family tickets for women and their dependents – a. Women use buses more than men, make more off-peak and non-work trips than men b. Next steps: An in-depth pricing analysis based on bus usage patterns of women 2. Consider making bus front-doors women-only - a. Women find boarding and alighting the most unsafe steps of bus and train journeys b. Next steps: assess the success of Bangalore’s buses with their women-only front doors 3. Explore public-private partnerships, advertising revenues to increase and improve women’s toilets - a. Women have proportionally fewer toilets than men; 93% of out-of-order toilets are women’s toilets b. Next steps: Prioritize the recommendations we have suggested by the ease and cost of implementation 4. Assess measures like gender-training to improve bus conductors’ behaviour towards women - a. An alarming proportion of women report harassment by conductors who also don’t defend women-only seats b. Next steps: Assess the success of Jagori’s gender-training of DTC bus conductors 5. Consider hiring women as train and bus drivers, conductors, especially as bus conductors - a. Women reported both preferences for women in these jobs; and also strong interest in these jobs b. Next steps: Identify and develop measures to recruit and retain women in these jobs like starter-routes that are shorter, less-crowded, child-care options for women with children who want to work 6. Assess the success of the women commandos initiative with a view to expanding it - a. Women feel safer and more comfortable with women security personnel b. Next steps: Assess the impact of the women commando initiative on safety and perceptions of safety 30 Recommendation 1: Introduce unlimited family tickets for women for off-peak use. The following facts have emerged about women’s travel patterns in Mumbai: ï‚· Women travel more by bus than by train ï‚· Bus passes are much more expensive than train passes ï‚· Women travel more during off-peak hours than men ï‚· Spend on dependent travel is a large percentage of women’s spend on transport, especially for poor women Thus an unlimited off-peak ticket that enables women to travel with their dependents on as many buses as they like can be useful to women. When we tested this idea with our surveys and focus groups, we received a strong positive response to the idea but given the scope and financial ramifications of this initiative, we have focused this recommendation on some suggested next steps to explore this possibility further. Exhibit: Explore the revenue potential of a daily ladies’ pass allowing unlimited use during off-peak hrs Next Steps Women walk more than 1. Understand usage: men across income •Aim to find out who is using daily passes, how categories are they using them, and at what times? Who does NOT use daily passes, and why not? •Conduct a comprehensive survey of women’s public transport usage patterns Women uses buses more DAILY LADIES’ PASS o Users: when do they use buses most? • Universal access (except o Non-users: do women walk out of choice, than trains or is it because they cannot afford buses? AC, Express and Corridor buses) o Conduct an in-depth analysis of current daily passes with a focus on what types of • Off-peak (11am to 4pm) women use and do not use them • Includes children and senior citizen family 2. Understand pricing: Women travel much more members • Conduct a pricing study to understand the than men during off-peak elasticity of demand among women for bus hours (between 11am and travel across peak and off-peak hours 4pm) • Weigh the benefits of converting new users against the cost of losing revenue from existing customers (who use the daily pass) 31 Recommendation 2: Introduce women-only doors in BEST buses. We found that the section of the journey that is most uncomfortable for women is the boarding of and alighting from buses and trains. Women-only doors emerged as a very high impact intervention that women and girls we surveyed and spoke with felt very strongly about (see some quotations on exhibit below). In addition, having women-only doorways also addresses a popular request: more stopping time on buses as there are usually fewer women boarding and alighting buses than men. One concern is around men users not taking well to the scheme but a short survey we conducted in Bangalore where buses have women-only front doors, revealed that 72% of men either like the initiative or are indifferent to it. Recommendation #2: BEST can consider women-only bus doors to Exhibit: BEST can consider women-only bus doors to address unsafe/ uncomfortable boarding and address unsafe/ uncomfortable boarding and alighting. alighting Responses by Men to Gender-Segregated Bus Doorways Selected Quotes from Respondents (Bangalore, 2010) (2010) The implementation of separate entrances for men and From Mumbai Focus Groups with Women women for boarding/exiting buses in your city has: • “I will go to temple every day to thank you and the Goddess Durga if you can do this for usâ€? (implement women-only bus doors) 72% of men users 40% are indifferent to • “When I finally get off the bus at my destination, I feel like I have won a fight!â€? or like women- 32% door buses • “ I have to wait from 3-5 or 6 pm everyday for a bus that I can get onâ€? 20% From Bangalore Survey of Men • “It is more organized and women feel comfortable and safe in choosing the bus as their mode of transportationâ€? 8% • “in Bangalore guys used to hang on the bus entrance even when there was space inside, so a woman that wishes to enter the bus would think twice before boarding since she has to fight through Had more Unsure Had more good Indifferent these men. I believe a separate entrance will always help.â€? bad impact impact than bad to change than good • Conduct a more in-depth study of the Bangalore experience to assess the degree to which it met women’s needs Next Steps without disrupting bus time schedules • If promising, conduct a workshop with Bangalore officials to learn implementation dos and don’ts 32 Recommendation 3: Increase and appropriately utilize the budget for toilets to meet the strongly expressed need for toilets by women. Toilets at train stations were identified by women as a key priority. Clean and safe toilets signal a concern about women’s needs that is picked up by and is important to all women we interviewed, even those who are not frequent users of trains. Exhibit: Urgent Need for Improved Toilets for Women should be met with Increased Budget • Empower Mumbai Suburban Railway to make more Mumbai-specific decisions by: Mumbai specific o Devolving budgets for Mumbai trains to a city-level Governance o Adjusting organization and reporting structure to enable faster decision-making o Introducing city and station performance management targets into suburban railway roles and responsibilities • Introduce more public-private partnerships in the operation and management of toilets at Public Private stations: Partnerships o Open up advertising opportunities on all station toilets o Consider outsourcing of toilet operation and management for smaller stations Limited Period  Consider levying a limited period cess on railway passes to build up an endowment for passenger amenities including toilet operation and management that will pay for the Passenger Amenities maintenance of toilets Cess  Engage citizens’ groups like Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh to serve as Board members  Brihanmumbai Corporation’s unique agreement with community-based organizations (CBOs) to Leveraging CBOs manage waste management in their own slums has led to the creation of 490 CBOs that serve (Dattak Vasti Yojana) 91 lakh people  The ambit of successful CBOs under this scheme can be increased to include neighbourhood railway stations • Develop a devolved decision-making structure and budget for Mumbai Suburban Railways to present to the Board Next Steps • Assess and rank suggested recommendations for implementation based on cost and ease/ time of implementation 33 Recommendations 4: Conducting gender-training of bus conductors One of the chief complaints amongst the women we interviewed and surveyed was the lack of support they received from bus conductors. Only 53% of women respondents had any faith that their complaints on sexual harassment on the bus or men sitting on women’s seats would be addressed by bus conductors. Thus we believe that conducting gender-training of bus conductors and hiring women bus conductors are interesting possibilities for BEST to consider to meet this need. This is an area in which the expertise of women’s NGOs can be leveraged. In the case study below, we provide an example of gender-sensitization training that Jagori, a women’s NGO in New Delhi conducted with Delhi Transport Corporation bus conductors: Exhibit: Case Study of Gender-Training of Bus Conductors Safety in New Delhi: Statistics •Delhi accounts for 1/3rd of all reported rape cases and 1/4th of all molestation cases in major Indian cities • A survey done by Delhi Police (2004) showed that almost 45% of reported cases of molestation took place in public places, such as on buses Jagori’s Public Perception Survey creates opportunity to work with DTC • As part of their Safe Delhi campaign, Jagori conducted a survey of women around the city that revealed that 80% of 500 women respondents had faced harassment in public transport • Impressed with the work, the Chairman of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) decided to partner with Jagori to make buses safer for women. In September 2007, the Chief Minister of Delhi, and Minister of State for Transport, announced the partnership between DTC and Jagori Phase 1: Bus Conductor Training Sessions Phase 2: Instructor Training Workshop • From September to December 2007, trainers •In June 2010, Jagori and the DTC organized a 3-day from JAGORI conducted sessions at the DTC training workshop for 50 DTC instructors on how to training school for bus drivers and conductors educate bus drivers and conductors about sexual • The JAGORI team would go thrice a week to harassment discuss the issue of sexual harassment •The focus of this workshop was to improve their • Sessions were conducted inside a stationary understanding of why sexual harassment is so pervasive, DTC bus to get out of the “classroomâ€? and the need to find ways to eliminate it, so that they situation and to place the drivers and could communicate their message more effectively conductors in the shoes of passengers • The focus of these sessions was to • The interactive methodology included having women understand that sexual harassment is a talk about their experiences to facilitate understanding punishable offence, and is not playful and of the issue frivolous (as the terms “eve-teasingâ€? • The training curricula was divided into different sessions or“chedkhaniâ€? would suggest) and ranged from building conceptual understanding of • In 3 months, 3,500 bus drivers and gender, masculinity and violence against women to conductors were trained Bus conductors being trained on a DTC bus enhancing communication skills 34 Recommendation 5: Hiring women drivers and conductors Women in focus groups and surveys responded very positively to the question “Would you be interested in a job as a train driver/ bus driver/ bus conductorâ€? with 19%, 24% and a whopping 35% of survey respondents responding “Yesâ€? respectively. We asked women in our focus groups to raise their hands if they would consider these jobs – more than 80% did. An elderly lady said, “If rich women can work in offices, why can’t we work in buses and trains?â€? When we asked if the focus group women knew about the two women train drivers who currently serve on the Mumbai suburban train network29, not only were the women aware of it but proud of those women’s achievement – “Women are going to the moon, women are driving trains – nothing is difficult for women anymore!â€? The image of women in BEST and Indian Railways clearly has great signaling power. Our interviews with BEST suggest that the corporation instituted women bus conductors a few years ago but all seven of the first batch of women bus conductors asked to be shifted to desk jobs. We have sought interviews with these women to understand what their particular hardships were as women bus conductors but were unable to obtain any further information. In spite of this less than encouraging start that BEST had with the seven women bus conductors, we encourage both BEST and Indian Railways to consider women conductors and drivers, with a special focus on identifying how other cities have recruited and retained women bus conductors. Not only can this be an important way to boost women employment numbers, it sends very positive signals to the citizenry on the importance placed on gender equality by these government owned and run organizations. Several cities already have women bus conductors and drivers, among them Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi. In addition, women are becoming more and more prominent as security guards and policewomen across the country, including Mumbai. The increasing number of women in these professions can serve to dislodge notions of gender-appropriate work and spark aspirations among young girls across the city. 29 Conversations with MRVC staff at MUTP-2A launch, October, 2010 35 Exhibit: Hiring Women Bus Conductors EXAMPLES: Delhi Transport Corporation and Bangalore Transport System champion women bus conductors • Facing a shortage of bus conductors, the DTC issued ads for positions • To encourage more women to apply for jobs, the DTC placed women on morning shifts running from 7:30AM to 3:30PM • Passenger, conductor, and DTC official feedback has been strongly positive: • Women passengers feel safer and more comfortable • Convenient shift hours have helped women conductors get support from their families • DTC officials say they perform their duties better then their male colleagues Women bus conductor in Delhi “I used to take tuitions at home, as I couldn’t work full-time. When I saw this vacancy, I applied for it and got the job. I think more women should come forward and make use of this opportunity,â€? -Anita, bus conductor “Senior DTC officials claimed that compared to male conductors’ women conductors were more sincere and performed better too.â€? - “DTC hires women conductorsâ€?, Hindustan Times, October 20, 2010 “I got to know about the job through Employment News and I applied. I was a housewife, but with this job I am able to do household work, too, as the shift ends at 3:30PM,â€? – Namita, bus conductor Women bus conductor in Bangalore 36 Recommendation 6: Recognizing the positive response women users have to women commandos, conduct an in-depth assessment if the initiative’s performance in improving safety (and perceptions of safety) with a view to scaling up. Our interviews with women users as well as with Indian Railways Police suggest that this new initiative (it is less than a year old) is perceived as successful with positive responses on their availability and approachability of these women. Completing a year might be a good milestone for conducting an assessment on the performance of this initiative – do users approach women commandos more than railways police? Do women commandoes have a higher rate of addressing these issues than railway police? Most important, can we associate the deployment of women commandos with a decrease in crime and an increase in perceptions of safety? Evidence-based answers to these questions will go a long way towards meeting the budget and logistics requirements for maintaining and scaling up this initiative. Recommendation #6: Assess women commandos’ success in improving safety with the Impact scaling Commandos with a View to Refining and Scaling Up Exhibit: Assessinga view to of Womenup the initiative. % of Women respondents rating potential women Women Commuters Relate to Women Commandos commando initiatives as “High Impactâ€? (Dalberg Survey, 2010) Women commandoes have been part of the Government Railway Police for a while now but in 2009, Mamata Banerjee, the woman railways minister of 77% India, increased the number of women commandos as a way of combating rising crimes against women (199 reported on running trains nationally in 2009 versus 174 in 2008 – a 14% increase). 63% Mumbai women commuters have responded positively to the move, finding it easier to complain about harassment to women than men commandos who were sometimes reported to harass women themselves. Conversations with our focus groups and surveys suggest that women find women commandos more approachable and more empathetic than general railway police constables. “I’ve never approached the police even when my dabbas were stolen because I didn’t think police men would care.â€? Focus group respondent in Rahul Nagar More Women More Commandos commandos on Trains on platf orms • Conduct an impact assessment of the deployment of women commandos: o Do women feel safer in train stations where they are deployed? Do they receive more women’s complaints than Next Steps railway police? o Has their deployment seen a decrease in crime? 37 Next Steps Both BEST and Indian Railways have instituted several measures in recent years to make public transport safer and more comfortable for women - from women commandoes on railway platforms, women-only trains during rush-hours to 30% of bus seats reserved for women. To institutionalize this approach, the Gender Action Plan should start with defining a mandate and strategy to achieve that mandate. The six recommendations we have presented in the earlier section can be great starting points around which to develop this mandate and strategy. Would women prefer to have gender-segregated bus doors than reserved seats for example? Is the Ladies Special meeting as many needs as more reserved compartments in general trains would? A lack of planning also means an absence of measurement – to what extent is this measure meeting the need we wanted it to? We have shown below a schematic representation of what developing a gender mandate and strategy can look like: 1 SET MANDATE • Develop a mandate that requires all Mumbai transport entities to promote equality of opportunity for women, and to take active steps to promote gender equality in their planning and operations • Utilize existing frameworks: o Indian Constitution, Fundamental Rights, Articles 15 and 16 o 2001 National Policy for Empowerment of Women, Ministry for Women and Children o UNWOMEN (previously UNIFEM) and CEDAW guidelines 2 COLLABORATIVELY DEVELOP STRATEGY • Coordinate with relevant entities: • Gender expertise: Ministry for Women and Child Development, National Commission for Women, UNWOMEN and CEDAW, women’s NGOs like Jagori, Akshara • Transport expertise: BEST, Indian Railways, MMRDA, Centre for Sustainable Transport • Collaboratively develop a strategy to fulfill gender mandate (including a monitoring and evaluation framework with indicators that measure performance against agreed-on indicators 3 OPERATIONALIZE AND MEASURE IMPACT • Develop a comprehensive baseline to enable measurement of performance (e.g. % of women commuters, % of women monthly pass buyers, % of women employees at transport entities, etc.) • Assign targets with milestones and responsibilities (e.g. depot manager responsible for monitoring complaints against conductors, station manager responsible for monitoring maintenance of toilets, GM/ DRM responsible for promoting women-friendly schemes • Hire independent consultant to measure performance after suitable time period Source: Dalberg Research. Clearly articulated gender mandates and agendas have been used by cities in developed countries to fully incorporate gender needs into every stage of the planning and provision of public transport. For example, Transport for London developed a Gender Equity Scheme whose mandate for meeting the specific transport needs of women and girls is implemented through every step of the transport planning and provision process. 38 Exhibit: Case Study on Making Transportation Planning and Provision Gender Inclusive30 Transport for London Gender Equality Implementation (2007-2010) • Integrated body with Mandate (2007) • Key concerns solicited through consultation overall responsibility • GES standards and of London’s transport policies developed • Concerns linked to specific resolution activities system formed through consultative • Specific officials in TfL sub-departments made •Consolidated mission process with key accountable for activities and policies across stakeholders • Timeframe/deadline attached to each activity Underground, Rail, • GES prioritizes the River, and Surface following FIVE action Monitoring and Evaluation GES (2010) Transport services areas: • 2004-Women’s Action Plan published to serve as • Mandated to • Accessibility foundation for GES execute the Gender Equality Scheme (GES) • Safety & Security • A full review of TfL’s GES scheme will take place in is by Gender Equality 2010 • Affordability Act (2006) • Information • Employment India has a national gender inclusion strategy that provides strategies and recommendations on institutionalizing processes to meet the needs of women and girls across all sectors. This report also has recommendations for the public transport sector (described in the exhibit below). Exhibit: India’s National Gender Inclusion Strategy31 Section on Urban Transport… • “Men and women have varying transport needs and constraints and are affected differently by transport interventions… • The Urban Transport Systems that transport people to and from employment centers are sometimes inadequate for women, who must combine income-generating activities with household and familial activities, such as taking children to school and health centers and visiting the market. • Poor women, who balance productive, social, and reproductive roles in societies, often have higher demands on their time than poor men. Recommendations include: • Working Group on Empowerment of Women • 1. Ensuring that women are represented in the planning and design of transport investments,including on user panels, fund constituted under the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2006 boards, and so on. • 2. Improving the dissemination of information on transport •Report produced to incorporate the mandate of the investments and related employment opportunities. National Policy for Empowerment of Women • 3. Considering women’s transport needs, such as better route (2001), the gender provisions of the Indian planning or the provision of special buses or increased off-peak Constitution, and the gender-specific Millennium hours or services on less-traveled routes Development Goals in the 11th 5-year plan 30 Transport for London website (www.tfl.gov.uk) 31 Report of the Working Group on the Empowerment of Women, Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2006 (wcd.nic.in/wgfinalreport.pdf) 39 A clear mandate and strategy will help mobilize resources (staff, funding, etc.) and develop the right relationships and networks between the different transport entities – this is important for moving forward successfully on the six recommendations we have highlighted in this report . We have shown below a high level view on the process for doing so: We are happy to discuss this process with Mumbai transport entities and if required, strategize further the best way forward. We believe that these Next Steps are actually the First Steps towards institutionalizing a Gender Action Plan. We hope that this report has served as a conversation-starter rather than a tool-kit on developing gender-responsive public transport and we hope to see several new ideas and initiatives take flight from this first step. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this study, which we believe is the first of its kind in the country. We are excited about the results we have shown here and would be happy to discuss them further. 40 Bibliography KEY REFERENCES: Oxford University Press (2010).Mumbai Human Development Repot 2009. Baker, J. (2005). “Urban Poverty and Transport: The Case of Mumbai.â€? World Bank Policy Research working paper. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). (2005). “Strategy for Transportation.â€? Mumbai City Development Plan 2005-2025. Maunder, D. et al. (1997). “Attitudes and Travel Behavior of Residents in Pune, India.â€? Transportation Research Board, 76th Annual Meeting, D.C. Peters, D. (1998). “Breadwinners, Homemakers and Beasts of Burden: A Gender Perspective on Transport and Mobility.â€? Institute for City and Regional Planning (ISR), Berlin, Germany. Srinivasan, S. (2004). “Influence of Residential Location on Travel Behavior of Women in Chennai, India.â€? Conference Report - Research on Women’s issues in Transportation, Vol1 COMPLETE LIST OF REFERENCES: Geetam Tiwari and Anvita Anand (2005) “Gendered Perspective of the Shelter–Transport–Livelihood Link: The Case of Poor Women in Delhiâ€? IIT Delhi Riverson, J. et al. (2005). “The Challenges in Addressing Gender Dimensions of Transport in Developing Countries: Lessons from World Bank’s Projects.â€? World Bank Baker, J. (2005). “Urban Poverty and Transport: The Case of Mumbai.â€? World Bank Policy Research working paper. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). (2005). “Strategy for Transportation.â€? Mumbai City Development Plan 2005-2025. Zegras, P. et al. (2006). “Driving Forces in Developing Cities’ Transportation Systems: Insights from Selected Cases.â€? WBCSD. Maunder, D. et al. (1997). “Attitudes and Travel Behavior of Residents in Pune, India.â€? Transportation Research Board, 76th Annual Meeting, D.C. Peters, D. (2002). “Gender and Transport in Less Developed Countries: A Background Paper in Preparation for CSD-9.â€? UNCSD Peters, D. (1998). “Breadwinners, Homemakers and Beasts of Burden: A Gender Perspective on Transport and Mobility.â€? Institute for City and Regional Planning (ISR), Berlin, Germany. 41 Srinivasan, S. (2004). “Influence of Residential Location on Travel Behavior of Women in Chennai, India.â€? Conference Report - Research on Women’s issues in Transportation, Vol1. McGuckin, N., et al. (2005). “Differences in Trip Chaining by Men and Women.â€? Conference Report - Research on Women’s issues in Transportation, Vol2. Cropper, M., Bhattacharya, S. (2007).“Public Transport Subsidies and Affordability in Mumbai, India.â€? World Bank Policy Research Working Paper. Thakuriah, P. (2009). “Transportation and Employment Accessibility in a changing context of Metropolitan Growth: The Case of Delhi, India.â€? MIT Journal of Planning (Projections) Vol9. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), UNDP. (2010). “Mumbai Human Development Report – 2009.â€? Oxford University Press MMRDA (Government of Maharashtra). (2005). “TRANSportation Study FOR the region of Mumbai.â€? Comprehensive Transportation Study (CTS) for MMR. Mahadevia, D. (1999). “Metropolitan Employment in India.â€? Centre for Development Alternatives. Takeuchi, A. et al. (2007). “Measuring the welfare effects of slum improvement programs: The case of Mumbai.â€? Journal of Urban Economics 64 (65-84). Phadke, S. (2005). “You can be Lonely in a Crowd: The Production of Safety in Mumbai.â€? Indian Journal of Gender Studies. Kumar, P. et al. (2009). “Design Approach for Multi Modal Transport System.â€? Architecture – Time & Space. Nimbalkar, M. “Urban Transportation Problems in a Million City: A Case Study of a Pune Urban Area.â€? Hanlon, S. “Where do women feature in Public Transport?â€? TransAdelaide Australia Observer Research Foundation. (2010). “Sanitation Facilities at Mumbai Suburban Railway Stations.â€? http://www.observerindia.com/cms/sites/orfonline/modules/report/ReportDetail.html?cmaid=19162& mmacmaid=19163 Hannon, E. “Culturally Correct Transportation for Women.â€? Journey Woman. http://www.journeywoman.com/travel101/CulturallyCorrectTransportationforWomen.htm World Bank. (2004). “Inspection Panel Report & Recommendation.â€? World Bank. http://go.worldbank.org/18XY9KIR30 World Bank. “Mumbai Urban Transport Project Overview.â€? World Bank. http://go.worldbank.org/KRD33QYAK0 42 The Sunday Times. (September 19, 2009). “Mumbai’s Ladies Special leaves the commuter sex pests behind.â€? Earth Times. (September 4, 2007). “Women commandos to crack down on crime in Mumbai trains.â€? The Times of India. (July 21, 2010). “More seats for Women, Sr. Citizens on BEST buses.â€? http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/More-seats-for-women-sr-citizens-on-BEST- buses/articleshow/6193505.cms The Times of India. (August 16, 2010). “World Bank will lend Women a helping hand.â€? http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/World-Bank-will-lend-women-a-helping- hand/articleshow/6316451.cms Mumbai Suburban Railway Fares. http://www.indianrail.gov.in/mst_fares_km.html 43 Annex A) Selected interviews: Designation Entity Date of Interview General Manager BEST 12th October, 2010 Chief Traffic Manager BEST 30th September, 2010 Additional Director General of Police Railways 5th October, 2010 Urban Planner Center for Sustainable Transport 14th September, 2010 Project Associate Jagori 21st September, 2010 Sustainable Urban Transport Project Transport Specialist 20th September, 2010 (GTZ) Founder & Co-director Akshara NGO 25th October, 2010 Author – Walking in Mumbai Retired Journalist 15th October, 2010 LT constable at BCT Railway Police Force 2nd September, 2010 44 B) Dissemination Work Shop: Discussion on Study on Gender Assessment of the Mumbai Public Transport Date: 7 June 2011; Location: MRVC Conference Hall, 2nd Floor, Churchgate Station, Mumbai Please note the following sections on the workshop discussion reflect the views of the workshop participants and not of Dalberg Global Advisors or the research conducted. Workshop Participants: Name Organization Designation R.R. Deshpande BEST Undertaking Mumbai Chief Manager – BEST George Eaper Central Railways Sr. DOM/GENL Mumbai/CRLY Gaurav Gupta Dalberg Global Advisors Director- Asia Gayatri Datar Dalberg Global Advisors Consultant Nupur Kapoor Dalberg Global Advisors Consultant Yaquta Kanchwala Dalberg Global Advisors Intern Akshay Dedimane DNA Correspondent Chhari Dhingra GIZ SUTP Senior Project Officer Shailesh Goyal Gujarat and Rajasthan Rail User National Rail User consultative Association Council, I-RLY Neha Ghatpande Hindustan Times Reporter K Vijaya Lakshmi MMRDA Add. Chief (UMMTA) Shama Sawant MMRDA Naresh Chandra MRVC Director (Tech) Ravi Agarwal MRVC CEE/Plg Prakash Rao V. MRVC COM Subhash Nage MSRDC CE MSRDC Avatika Akerks Prana Worldwide CEO Maria Lobo SPARC Consultant Mitali Ayyangar SPARC Urban Planning Consultant Sandeep V. STUP Consultants Asrecer D. Timosora Atul Agarwal World Bank Transport specialist Nupur Gupta World Bank Sr. Transport Specialist Satya Mishra World Bank SD SP. Subhash Gupta Yatri Sangh Mumbai Member, N.R.U.C.C. Rail Board Vidhyadhar Date Author Workshop participants were asked to keep the following questions in mind while the findings of the report were presented: 1. Are all major issues faced by women and girls covered? 45 2. What further areas of analysis do you propose? 3. Are there additional recommendations? 4. How would you prioritize the recommendations? Additional Issues Highlighted at the Workshop: Issue Specific issue Potential solutions Challenges Needs of Boarding and Allow pregnant women to ride Monitor appropriate use of pregnant alighting the train in handicap compartments, add rows reserved for pregnant women rows reserved for pregnant women and handicap women in train compartments compartments; overcrowding Medical safety Include first aid boxes in buses and train conductors on how to use them; similar set up on trains Access to Transit to and from Feeder services such as shared Spaces around train stations public train stations/ bus vehicles; parking for auto are extremely congested transportation stops rickshaws; multilinked transport solutions such as a bus stop at all train station e.g. Bandra station Women in Inclusion of more Incentivize women to be Existing perceptions of leadership women in the involved in public transport at women at the organization/ Indian public both operational and institution; lack of support transport system at institutional levels; gender audit at organization/ peer or the institutional to be included in long term community level; transport level organizational assessment and organizations not strategy; assessment by a considered a women- gender expert friendly environment Toilets Quality and Ensure privacy, water supply, Funding; design of existing facilities appearance of electricity and dustbins inside toilet structures with men toilets versus toilets; strategic location of and women toilets on quantity at train toilets on railway platforms adjacent sides stations Bus stop New bus stops Persons designing and design which use stainless making high-level decisions steel are not do not explore the usability comfortable or of these new designs convenient and do not serve their purpose 46 Addressing Foot over bridges (FOBs) Complaint Information Increase awareness of helpline Helpline numbers in trains Redressal dispersion and numbers, SMS system are scratched out (paper System awareness availability; train call operators sticker version) and placed on gender issues; gender in one corner of a train sensitization training for BEST compartment (i.e. not conductors, train station visible to all) personnel Areas Which Require Additional Research (Raised by Workshop Participants): 1. Transport organizations gender-assessment: carry out a gender policy audit at the organizational level to better understand gender dynamics at the workplace. 2. Data analysis on recorded complaints (sent by SMS, brought to attention via the call helpline): this rich source of information will give further insights into the issues faced by women travelers. 3. Differences between perceptions of loyalist bus and train travelers. 4. Usage patterns of toilets by women in public spaces and studying issues of privacy, safety, and availability of water, electricity and dustbins inside toilets. 5. Effectiveness of bus conductor trainings on gender sensitivity (monitoring and evaluation of conductors while on the job). 6. Gender assessment of other forms of public transportation e.g. taxis, auto rickshaws and bicycles. 7. Feeder systems: shared vehicles, parking area for auto rickshaws, explore multilinked/ multi- modal transportation e.g. bus stations at train stations to allow easy access to train stations. 8. Ideas and structures for community-level governance for enhancing improvements in public transportation systems. 9. Surveys with larger number of respondents (random, representative sample with n >350) and further disaggregation of data such as distribution of weekly trips by gender by bus, by train and by destination. 10. Analysis of cost-effective infrastructure investments for public transport. 11. Disaggregated analyses of gender and transportation and of poverty and transportation. 12. Views of non-peak and weekend travelers. 13. Need for gender friendly street furniture such as benches for tired/pregnant women. 47 14. Walking patterns among low income groups (number of kilometers covered per trip destination and in trip-chaining). 15. Differential male and female accident/injury rates. 16. Segment analysis of gender needs for Western, Central and Harbor lines (an observation was made that the number of lowest-income workers differs per railway line). 17. Needs of relocated and migrant women/ first-time users of train services. 18. Perceptions of frontline staff (conductors, drivers, station masters, ticketing clerks etc) on interacting with women and behavior changes through the day (changes in behaviour can be studied through perception and feedback surveys). This concludes the discussions held at the workshop. 48 C) Survey questionnaire (English): Survey to Understand Public Transport Needs of Women and Girls in Mumbai (FOR WOMEN) 1 Gender Male 1 Female 2 2 Where do you live? South Mumbai 1 Eastern suburbs 2 Western suburbs 3 Other 777 3 What is your profession? Home maker 1 Office/business professional 2 Street/market vendor 3 Student 4 Domestic worker 5 Laborer 6 Other 777 4 How much do you spend on your own travel on buses and trains per month? Rs. 160/- 5 How much do you spend in a month on bus and train travel for dependants (children and elderly)? Rs.350/- 6 How do you travel for the following? 49 7 If bus monthly passes were cheaper, would you use Yes 1 them to travel more for work? No 2 8 Would you feel more/less/same comfortable if you boarded a bus/train with: A) Woman bus driver More 1 Same 2 Less 3 B) Bus with a woman bus conductor More 1 Same 2 Less 3 C) Train with a woman train operator More 1 Same 2 Activity 1) Train 2) Bus 3) Walking 4) Other (# boarded per (# boarded (# of +15min (# boarded week) per week) journeys a per week) week) A) Go to work / Return from work × B) Run household and personal errands × C) Go to/ transport dependants to × school/ college/ doctor D) Other × 50 Less 3 9 Would you be interested in any of the following jobs? A) Bus driver OK 1 Not OK 2 B) Bus conductor OK 1 Not OK 2 C) Train driver OK 1 Not OK 2 10 Please report your frequency of travel in each of these time slots: A) Morning off-peak (11am-4pm) Regularly 1 Once in a while 2 Never 3 B) Peak (6:30am-11am; 4-7:30pm) Regularly 1 Once in a while 2 Never 3 C) Night Off peak (Anytime after 7:30pm) Regularly 1 Once in a while 2 Never 3 11 If there was a bus ticket offering unlimited use Yes 1 between 11 am and 4 pm, will you use buses more in this time period? No 2 12 How much would you pay for this ticket? (A current round trip bus ticket is Rs. 14 for ~10 KM Rs. 10/- of travel) 51 13 Do you buy monthly passes Yes 1 >> Go to Q15 No 2 14 Why do you not buy monthly passes? Passes are expensive 1 Don’t have documents 2 Don’t know how to 3 apply/don’t know about it I don’t need monthly 4 tickets 15 Please report your perception of your own safety at each of the following steps of a journey: Journey Steps: Train A) Journey to and from the station Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 B) Buying a ticket Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 C) Waiting at the platform Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 D) Boarding the train/getting off the train Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 52 E) On the train Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 Journey Steps: Bus F) Journey to and from bus stop Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 G) Waiting at the bus stop Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 H) Boarding/getting off the bus Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 I) On the bus Safe 1 Somewhat safe 2 Unsafe 3 16 Please rate the following by their impact on travel by women and girls? For TRAINS: A) Better lighting of skywalks and overhead passes High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 B) Better lighting of train stations High impact 1 53 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 C) Increased presence of women commandos in High impact 1 stations Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 D) Increased presence of women commandos on High impact 1 trains Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 E) Additional women-only carriages (Peak) High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 F) Additional women-only trains High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 G) Longer stopping times for trains to help women, High impact 1 children and elderly safely board and exit Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 H) Baby changing facilities in High impact 1 54 bathrooms/provisions made for pregnant women Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 I) More and better maintained women’s toilets High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 J) Bus stop/auto-stand/taxi stand within 100m of High impact 1 every train station Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 For BUSES: A) Women only buses High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 B) Additional reserved seats on buses High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 C) Better enforcement of women-only seats on High impact 1 buses by conductors Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 55 D) Separate bus entrances for men and women High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 E) Better lighting of bus stops High impact 1 Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 F) Clear routes and timings at bus stops and on High impact 1 buses Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 G) Longer stopping times for buses to help women, High impact 1 children and elderly safely board and exit Medium impact 2 Little impact 3 No impact 4 17 Do you believe Mumbai is a difficult city to walk Yes 1 due to its poor roads and lack of sidewalks? No 2 18 If the immediate areas surrounding bus stops and Yes 1 train stations were improved would you use trains and buses more? No 2 19 Do you use toilets at train stations Yes 1 No 2 20 Please circle the option that most applies to toilets at train stations: 56 A) Dirty/clean Dirty 1 Clean 2 B) Not working/in working order Not working 1 In working order 2 C) Plentiful/ Lacking in number Plentiful 1 Lacking in number 2 D) Expensive/ Affordable Expensive 1 Affordable 2 21 If you had a problem (e.g. harassment, overcrowding, theft) on the bus, would you raise it with... A) Bus conductor Yes 1 No 2 B) The railway police Yes 1 No 2 22 If raised, do you think your concerns would be addressed? A) Bus conductor Yes 1 No 2 B) Railway police Yes 1 No 2 24 What is your age? 26 Years 25 What is your monthly household expenditure? Less than Rs. 5,000 1 Rs. 5,000-9,000 2 Rs.10,000-15,000 3 Rs. 16,000-30,000 4 57 More than Rs. 30,000 5 26 How much of the household expenditure is spent Less than 50% 1 by you? 50% 2 More than 50% 3 27 What do you most appreciate about bus and train services in Mumbai 28 If there is one thing you would like to see changed about the bus and train services in Mumbai, what would it be? Trains and buses on time 29 Is there anything you would like to tell the transport service authorities? 58 D) Fare structure: Bus Fares are Higher per Kilometer Traveled than Rail Fares. Cost of Rail (Second Class) and Bus (Regular Service) in 2005-2006; all fares in Indian Rupees Rail Fare Bus fare Distance(km) Monthly One way Monthly One way 1-3 60 4 180 3 3-5 60 4 210 4 5-7 60 4 240 5 7-10 60 4 390 6 11-15 75 5 480 9 16-20 90 6 - 10 21-25 105 7 - 11 26-30 105 7 - 12 31-35 120 8 - 13 36-40 135 9 - 15 41-45 150 10 - 17 46-50 165 11 - 19 51-55 180 11 - 21 56-60 195 12 - 23 Source: Indian Railways and BEST Undertaking; Date: 2005-2006 59