A worldwide study of 327,403 metro and bus passengers found that women are ten per cent more likely to feel unsafe than men on urban public transport.
The study, conducted by Imperial College London on data from 2009 to 2018, looked at a third of a million passenger responses to Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSSs) from 28 cities across four continents.
It found that on average, women are ten per cent more likely than men to report feeling unsafe on metro trains (trains that go underground) and six per cent more likely than men to report feeling unsafe on buses.
"Our research exposes a gap in passenger safety levels that's often overlooked. We hope that by putting a figure on feelings of safety, urban metro and bus companies can take measures to boost women's feelings of safety and reduce the gap between genders. Laila Ait Bihi Ouali Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The largest difference between women and men's perceptions of safety was in Europe, where women were 12 per cent more likely to report feeling unsafe than men.
The smallest difference was in South America, where women were nine per cent more likely to report feeling unsafe than men.
The researchers say the findings highlight an important social issue that could be preventing some women from thriving both personally and professionally.
Lead author Laila Ait Bihi Ouali, of Imperial's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: "Our research exposes a gap in passenger safety levels that's often overlooked. We hope that by putting a figure on feelings of safety, urban metro and bus companies can take measures to boost women's feelings of safety and reduce the gap between genders."
"Our study was conducted on data from before the coronavirus outbreak, but its message will be just as important when life resumes as normal."
The results are published in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A.
Safety and satisfaction
Feeling unsafe can lead to social, professional, economic, and health problems for those affected. In this case, women who feel unsafe on public transport might turn down shift work at certain times of day, or avoid social or work events that require travelling a certain route. Laila Ait Bihi Ouali Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Public transport operators send online CSSs every year to passengers that are designed to measure general feelings of satisfaction with their networks. The surveys ask passengers their level of agreement with various statements about availability, time, information, comfort, security, customer care, accessibility, environment, and overall satisfaction.
The response options are usually: agree strongly; agree; neither agree nor disagree; disagree; or disagree strongly.
To carry out the study, the researchers looked at 327,403 completed responses to CSSs from 2009 to 2018.
