Equitable Safety in Shared Transportation

Women and other marginalized groups are disproportionately victims of crime on shared public transportation. By exploring passenger safety implications of utilizing shared transportation, including existing public transit systems and ride-sharing services, this research aims to contribute towards ethical and equitable solutions.

Recognizing the intersection of gendered safety concerns in the design of shared transportation will help materialize this common good. 

Ethical Framework 

This study is grounded in a consequentialist ethical framework applying both utilitarian and common good approaches to public transportation safety. Combining these approaches, attempts to improve equity, considering both individual and communal welfare.

As innovations increase in complexity, the harder it becomes to predict the unplanned ways they will impact society. Unintended consequences distribute benefits and risks inequitably, leading to direct or indirect social burdens, elevating issues of liability, responsibility, equity, and justice. Such externalities often require regulation or market-based interventions to mitigate.

Utilitarian consequentialism does not permit a small number of people to be sacrificed for the benefits of the majority if that group of people stands to lose more than the gains. The likely adverse outcomes of sacrificing the safety of women and those intersectionally marginalized are far greater than the overall net positive. Sharded transportation should be designed to enhance the safety of vulnerable groups, but solutions should not violate community welfare.

Gender Equity

The vast majority of victims of sexual assault and harassment on shared transportation are women and other intersectionally marginalized groups, such as transgender and nonbinary people, racial minorities, and women with disabilities. Prevalence rates between 15 to 95 percent, depending on the region, have been found when studying sexual offenses and harassment reported by women on public transport worldwide. 

These findings suggest the need for intervention strategies. Fear of sexual harassment on transit changes travel behavior in negative ways. Fear constrains choices; it limits the use of public spaces and influences the types of environments people avoid for their personal safety. These precautionary measures cost psychologically and economically but also impact productivity in society.

Findings

The majority of women (56%) feel safe most or all of the time while traveling alone on shared public transportation. Only 15 percent of women hardly ever or never felt safe in that setting, and there was no significant generational difference in safety perceptions x² (3, N=372) = 1.782, p = .150. These findings starkly contrast actual experiences shown below.

Kruskal-Wallis tests determined there was no significant generational difference in experiences of physical harassment  x² (3, N=372) =  1.437, p =  .231. There were, however, significant generational differences in visual harassment x² (3, N=372) =  8.905, p = < .001, where Baby Boomers reported significantly less visual harassment (32%), than Generation Z (69%) and Millennials (70%). There was also a significant difference in verbal harassment x² (3, N=372) =  4.573, p = < .004, where Baby Boomers reported significantly less verbal harassment (28%), than Generation Z (54%) and Millennials (54%). The sexual assault incidence rate was too low to compare across generations.

Solutions

Participants selected preferred safety solutions for shared transportation The majority of women chose video surveillance (70%), emergency alert buttons (67%), well-lit vehicles with large windows visible from the outside (63%), and the ability to share the vehicle details and location with friends (56%). The least favored options were background checks and safety ratings of passengers (34%), optional safety partitions between passengers (41%), and female-only passenger vehicles (41%).

There were significant generational differences in two of the preferred safety solutions; background checks, x² (3, N=372) = 3.275, p =.022, where Generation Z was more likely to prefer these (47%) to Baby Boomers (23%), and the option to pay more to travel alone, x² (3, N=372) = 2.946, p = .034, with Millennials more willing to select this (55%) than Baby Boomers (34%).

Millennials’ willingness to pay an additional cost to travel alone is likely because, as a generation, they are accustomed to paying for convenience through software applications. However, commoditizing safety is inequitable and disadvantages those already marginalized economically. Safety should not be a privilege. Similarly, background checks and passenger ratings, although more preferred by Generation Z who are used to sharing data, have the potential to lead to discrimination. Existing ride-sharing services report significant racial discrimination where people of color experience longer wait times and more cancelations than white passengers. Background checks also do not solve for unpunished behaviors such as the visual and verbal harassment experienced by the majority of women on public transport. Despite the widespread use of women-only transportation in predominantly developing countries, it was among the least favored safety solutions chosen. The contrast in gender equality between developed and developing nations may account for this disparity.

When asked about the ethical considerations of background checks and ratings of co-passengers, the majority of participants agreed that they do not account for behaviors that have gone unpunished (70%) and that passengers could be unfairly rated based on discrimination (55%). Close to half of the participants agreed that there is inequality in the criminal justice system (46%), and that background checks would further disadvantage already marginalized groups (39%). Similarly, when asked about the ethical concerns of female-only vehicles, almost half of participants suggested that they do not address the issue of sexual harassment and sexual assault and instead support the stereotype of female vulnerability in need of protection (46%). A further 39 percent of participants were concerned that gender segregation could lead to other forms of segregation, and nearly a third agreed that isolating females is victim-blaming (31%).

Limitations

An assumption being made in this research paper is that the same perceptions of safety solutions that women identify with will extend to other vulnerable groups who are intersectionally marginalized; trans people, gender nonbinary, genderqueer people, racial minorities, people with disabilities. Further research would need to be conducted with these groups to validate

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