Gender equity in transport planning: Improving women’s access to public transport in Pakistan

Policy brief 18 Oct 2017 Cities

Authors

Women in Pakistan are more dependent on public transport due to various social norms. However, they also face significant challenges while using public transport because of concerns over safety, harassment and worries about their social reputation.
A lack of transport options for women restricts their lives substantially and affects whether they work, what kind of jobs they take, where they can study, and whether they can visit peers or family.
Although interventions that provide women’s only travel, like the Lahore ‘Pink Bus’ scheme, can benefit their users, they only serve a small amount of women.
This brief lays out the challenges and policy options for the government through an analysis of primary and secondary survey data, focus group discussions, key expert interviews, existing literature and the authors’ experience from other research projects.
The authors propose a series of policy recommendations to improve transport options for women and how to better use the resources currently targeted at existing interventions.