From Transition no. 11, April 2000

Women and Local Transport Plans

By Kathleen Covill

On Wednesday 26th of January, Kathleen Covill (CILT's researcher for passenger needs and a member of the London Women and Planning Forum steering group), chaired the LWPF seminar on 'Women and Local Transport Plans'. The meeting was well-attended by people from different areas of the transport sector and some important points were raised. The LWPF will produce a detailed broadsheet on the content of the meeting later in the year - the following is a discussion based on the main issues that arose during the speakers' talks and the ensuing debate.

A debate centred on women and Local Transport Plans was seen as a timely start to the year 2000. Women and their transport needs have been around for a long time, but it is only in the past three years that this topic seems to have gained some recognition in government policy. The 1998 Government Transport White Paper stated that: "...the measures we are introducing will tackle the transport needs of women, disabled and elderly people." (1)

The White Paper specifically referred to some of the transport issues affecting women - driving licence ownership ("over 4 in 10 women" (2) do not have them) and reliance on public transport, particularly buses - to name two. It also included a list of amendments that would improve transport for women:

• An integrated, safer public transport system
• An improved pedestrian environment
• Land use planning to improve links to local services
• The inclusion of women's transport needs in Local Transport Plans and through "auditing transport initiatives." (3)
• Safer Routes to school
• Inclusion of women's transport needs in the remit of the Commission for Integrated Transport.

There are three reasons why the year 2000 could be described as a landmark year. Firstly there is the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) -commissioned Gender Audit produced by Professor Kerry Hamilton and her colleagues at the University of East London. If applied carefully, this Audit could bring about a fundamental recognition of women's transport needs and concerns. Then there is the forthcoming mayoral election and the Greater London Authority (GLA) - where transport in London is firmly on the agenda. Thirdly, there is the change from the yearly 'Transport Policies and Programmes' to the five-yearly 'Local Transport Plans' (LTPs) for local authorities, and for the London Boroughs the move to 'Interim Transport Plans' (ITPs) and then to 'Local Implementation Plans' (LIPs). When combined with the new emphasis on consultation, this change to longer-term transport planning could work well for women.

The Gender Audit

Professor Kerry Hamilton attended the seminar to introduce this topic. Due to be launched this Easter, the Gender Audit is a checklist that organisations undertake on a regular basis to ensure that their own house is in order and that the services they offer are sensitive to women's needs (see Box 1 on the next page). It also contains a definitive overview of women's social, economic and transport profiles, a literature review, and the results of focus groups in which a wide variety of women discussed transport issues. The Audit is intended for local authorities but will hopefully be undertaken by transport operators and providers, and by businesses and institutions such as hospitals and universities (and governments!?) as well. Initial reports say that some transport operators are interested - London Transport and West Yorkshire both support the Audit. Transport operators and policy-makers would particularly benefit from an increased understanding of the needs of women passengers, as well as from a re-evaluation of women in their own organisational structures.

Box 1 The Gender Audit Checklist serves two purposes: "As a management tool - to assess how well the organisation meets women's needs, to identify priorities for improvement, and to measure progress towards gender-based targets. As a community tool - to assess how well a local transport provider or local authority meets women's transport needs, to identify priorities for campaigning, lobbying and negotiations, and to measure progress for operators and local authorities towards gender-based targets." (4)

The positive implications of the Gender Audit are numerous. Its very existence shows that the government has been forced to take women's transport needs seriously by funding research into this rather neglected area. Organisations undertaking the Audit will identify their departments in which women are under-represented. This is crucial in revealing whether women are involved at executive, management and policy-making levels as well as at 'shop floor' levels. Undertaking the Audit also ensures that organisations think about women's needs as service users as well as employees, and judge services on how effectively they meet these needs.

Hopefully the Gender Audit will get women firmly on the transport agenda in the same way that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 has moved disabled people's needs onto the same agenda - whilst not solving problems instantly, the legislation has forced awareness to grow. In many respects, the Gender Audit is long overdue. A 1985 Greater London Council (GLC) study into women and transport was calling for the same changes to the transport system that are being highlighted in research carried out today (5). Hopefully the Gender Audit may mean that fifteen years from now, research into women and transport is able to show some improvements. There are signs that gender-sensitive reviews like the Gender Audit may catch on - Plymouth City Council has just agreed to fund research into how its local planning policies affect women. (6)

The one concern regarding the Gender Audit is that local authorities, hospitals, universities, and transport operators may find it hard to complete. It is a large, detailed piece of work that requires commitment from senior members and management. There needs to be an auditor who actually does the work - who is allowed to do the work properly, and not as an unwelcome addition to an already heavy workload. More importantly, once the Audit is completed it needs to be applied. Completing the Audit, like producing a Local Agenda 21 statement, is only the first move. Proper change needs to follow that is assessed through on-going monitoring.

The best case scenario is that the Gender Audit will inform ITPs and LIPs, establish clear statistics about women, highlight areas that need improvements, and then monitor the impact of schemes designed to make these improvements. The worst case scenario is that it will be completed as a placatory exercise, or will not be undertaken at all.

The Greater London Authority and the Mayor

Nicky Gavron attended the meeting to discuss women, LTPs, and the GLA. In addition to other posts Nicky Gavron is chair of the London Planning Advisory Committee, is one of only three women on the Commission for Integrated Transport, and is a Labour candidate for the GLA representing Enfield and Haringey. She said that she was pleased to see a seminar on women and Local Transport Plans because it meant that there were women coming together to discuss these issues and make themselves heard.

The main impact of the GLA on women and transport plans is that, through his or her transport strategy, the mayor will exert a great deal of influence over the content of ITPs and the LIPs that follow. So if the mayor is sensitive to those issues that affect women and ensures that their transport needs are considered in ITPs there will be scope for positive change. The mayor will be able to encourage local authorities to include women in their ITPs and to consult with women on transport schemes and issues. Similarly, it is hoped that the mayor and the GLA will consider women's needs when producing a Spatial Development Strategy for London. The inclusion of women's transport needs as part of the remit of the Commission for Integrated Transport is also welcome. An integrated approach to transport, planning and land use should benefit women and seek to match their more complex journey patterns without recourse to the private car.

One of the main concerns that arose during the discussion of women and the GLA was the difference between capital and revenue funding. Many people felt that ITPs and LIPs would submit proposals for big capital schemes whilst neglecting the maintenance and development of smaller but equally vital long-term schemes such as improvements to pedestrian routes, to bus stops, street lighting, and town centre environments. This was a particularly pertinent point for Community Transport schemes, where the majority of funding is decided from one year to the next - thus making long-term planning almost impossible.

Interim Transport Plans

Margaret Cooper, London Borough of Tower Hamlets' Transport Officer, attended the seminar to discuss Tower Hamlets' ITP. She acknowledged that their ITP did not mention women specifically as a target group despite featuring safer routes to schools, bus shelter improvement, and the plan to conduct surveys in supermarkets in order to reach a wider audience - all potentially 'women-friendly' schemes. The document had focused on disabled people's mobility needs where access to transport was concerned. Whilst many of these needs are synonymous with those of women, they are not the whole picture. Ideally, women should be specifically referred to as a group in their own right. The Government Office for London's guidelines on ITP contents appear to confirm this. In the initial LTP document, the guidance is that "LTPs should tackle the transport needs of women..." (7) and that there is a minimum requirement to describe "...initiatives to meet the needs of all social groups (including women...)" (8). In Appendix C of the ITP guidance supplement, it states that "measures which give priority to reducing crime and fear of crime associated with transport...specifically with respect to women..." (9) are likely to make successful bids. The section on buses also encourages projects where routing and provision are focused on areas where there are specific needs - a potentially 'women-friendly' policy.

However, a brief perusal of a selection of ITPs reveals that whilst some of them do include references to 'parents', 'carers' and 'people with pushchairs' without specifically referring to gender, specific references to women are infrequent (see Table on the next page). Seven of the thirty three London Borough ITPs (21%) were looked at for specific references to women. Due to the facts that women use buses more than men, walk more than men, and are generally more concerned about personal security issues on public transport than men, it was predicted that these would be the areas where women would be referred to. Five of the seven ITPs did specifically refer to women under sections on crime, fear of crime, and personal safety and security - reflecting the ITP guidance emphasis on this aspect. However, only two referred to women under sections on pedestrians, and none referred to women when discussing buses.

This survey was ad hoc but does nevertheless indicate that the inclusion of women in ITPs (as a specific group with particular transport needs) is inconsistent. Perhaps it is time that statistics are acknowledged and references are gender specific. If proactive councils have not identified women as the neglected majority in their ITPs then there is little hope that other councils will have made much progress in this area. The need for the Gender Audit to encourage the 'mainstreaming' of women's transport needs becomes increasingly clear.

The requirements for consultation on ITPs and LIPs should encourage a more participatory and responsive approach to planning transport in local boroughs. This should be supported by the 'Best Value' approach which is also based on continuous consultation and feedback.

Both of these aspects ought to give women more say in transport planning and in the schemes that are developed for their boroughs.

However, effective consultation is hard to achieve and involves long-term hard work. Many councils face the task of reaching residents who are either socially excluded or suffering from consultation and voter fatigue. The temptation to speak to the same vociferous few must be overwhelming. If this does not include an outspoken women's group, speaking for women exclusively, then women's transport needs and concerns will inevitably be overlooked.

	Waltham Forest	Barnet	Barking & Dagenham	Tower Hamlets	Hounslow	Havering	Newham
Crime & Personal Security		*	**	*	*	*
Pedestrians	*	*
Car Use & Ownership	**	*
Equal Opp.s		*
Potential Consultees			*				x
Vulnerable Road Users	*
Bus Users
Population & Housing	*
TOTAL References	5	4	3	1	1	1	0/1

x = No specific reference, but one women's group featured in list of Consultees

On a more positive note, there are organisations that can improve community participation for previously neglected or excluded groups. Kathleen Lyons from the Community Transport Association made the vital point that their groups have a wealth of knowledge and experience to impart where community participation is concerned. Community transport groups start with their potential passengers and tailor their services to match. They use "community accountability" (10) to evaluate service provision and user satisfaction. Groups such as Newham's Women's Safe Transport show that women can be effectively involved in every aspect of transport operation, providing a service that is crucial for other women after listening to their concerns.

Some Wider Issues

A crucial issue in any discussion concerning women, with regard to transport or ITPs or personal safety, is whether or not women can still be seen as a separate group with separate issues and needs in their own right. At meetings discussing women and transport or women and safety there is always the question of whether women's needs in these areas are now subsumed under more general headings. If lobby groups for disabled people and for ethnic communities are campaigning for improvements in transport and personal security, do women still need a voice?

In addition to this, there is the difficulty caused not by being a woman working in a male-orientated transport environment but of being a woman who is outspoken about women in a male-orientated transport environment - an unenviable task. Some women avoid talking about women's transport needs as a separate, important issue in case they are labelled a 'feminist' and branded with the stereotypes that this word supposedly implies. There is the feeling that women's issues have 'been done'. A common argument linked to this stance is that discussing 'women's transport needs' is demeaning to women because it lumps women together instead of recognising important cultural and social differences. A combination of these phenomena is probably the reason why there seem to be so few voices speaking out at the moment simply for women.

Hopefully the Gender Audit can change this by mainstreaming women's transport needs - but the question remains, do women still need a separate voice? The answer can only be yes. Women are 51% of the population, yet are still effectively seen as a minority with minority group status in the issues that really affect transport and the environment. Women still earn less than men, own less property, still undertake the unpaid caring and domestic roles in most households, still work part-time more than men (thus having less access to pension schemes and other full-time benefits) and still work at home in low-paid home-working schemes more than men: 92% of home-workers are women (11). In a paper on employment opportunities for disabled people, Caroline Gooding writes:

"The overwhelming majority of women are still concentrated into a handful of occupations - clerical, cleaning, catering, shopwork. (I would add 'caring' to this list - author). This then allows the other better paid occupations to be structured to suit men...The structures of employment, although apparently neutral, are in fact moulded around the life patterns and domestic obligations of men...87% of part-timers are women."(12)

Until women have an equal say in transport and planning, earn the same as men in all fields, have policies that identify and value the unpaid social roles women fulfil (that contribute to women being so "time-poor"(13)), we should not be too keen to stand alone or to allow our voices to be absorbed.

Women and Car Use

Another reason to continue focusing on women as a separate group in transport is the 'women and cars' debate. Car ownership and driving licence ownership amongst women is growing, a fact reflected by the sudden inclusion of women in car advertising (the Fiat Punto, the Renault Clio, the Ford Fiesta) - portraying women no longer as passengers but as confident drivers. The usefulness of the car in matching the shorter, more complicated journeys that women undertake cannot be underestimated. When this is mixed with the feelings of liberty and safety that cars provide, it becomes clear that encouraging women away from cars will be extremely hard and that public transport and planning have a long way to go before they can offer a persuasive alternative.

For the women who drive it is difficult to realise that they are contributing to community severance, noise and air pollution, congestion and road crashes - the car-related 'fall-out' that other women and children in the community then suffer from. To compete in this arena, women on low incomes must either beggar themselves trying to run a car or rely on the cheapest public transport mode available - the bus. Despite this reliance, the bus operators seem intent on wooing the commuter rather than on listening to the needs of women passengers.

A related concern is the future of transport operation and planning. Many women feel that by more women taking senior positions in planning and transport that designs for women will improve. However, if today's and tomorrow's women concentrate on driving as the only feasible transport solution, future women transport operators and planners will be hard pressed to provide alternative solutions to the car. Stuart Murray writes of many planners and policy makers that "...those with ready access to cars may have simply overlooked or understated the importance of transport issues." (14)

Older Women

One more reason, if one is needed, that women should maintain one loud transport voice is that as we grow older we outnumber men: "Over the next twenty years we will see a doubling of the population aged 60+ and a trebling of the population aged 80+. Women will greatly outnumber men in this older population." (15)

So in twenty years' time there will be many older women who can no longer drive, or who no longer wish to, but who want to remain active within their community. Unless there is an accessible, safe public transport network in place by then, this scenario will leave them with a lose-lose situation - continue using their cars and contribute to the congestion and pollution of the future, or face social isolation. If women's transport needs are neglected now while transport is high on the government agenda, the public transport network of the future will provide for even fewer women than the current system - definitely a worst-case scenario.

References

e-mail: scavanagh@wds.org.uk

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