TInnGO and DIAMOND projects, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme, will showcase new approaches, data, tools and action plans for achieving diversity and gender equality in transport and mobility during their final conference, which will be jointly hosted from 17th to 19th November.
The event, being organised in conjunction with the 10th International Symposium on Travel Demand Management, aims at sharing new ideas and conceptual approaches on gender and diversity in transport and mobility sectors, advance how new trends in mobility provide new opportunities for inclusivity and present practical tools for key stakeholders to identify and mitigate gender and diversity gaps.
An array of over 60 international speakers will participate in the 12 sessions scheduled, including leading researchers from universities, research centres and academic institutions, associations and platforms working on gender equality, diversity and women inclusion in transport and policy makers involved in the definition of mobility plans at a local, regional, national or European level.
During the event, four keynotes are to be delivered, comprising a keynote on seeing beyond white male privilege in the transport sector by Glenn Lyons, Professor of Future Mobility at the University of West of England; a keynote on inclusive mobility from an international perspective by Eleanor Lisney, Co-director of Sisters of Frida; a lecture on racial equity considerations in transportation provision and road user safety by Chandra Bhat, Director of the Data-Supported Transportation Operations and Planning (D-STOP) and Joe J. King Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, and the participation of Dag Balkmar, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Feminist Social Studies at Örebro University with a presentation regarding women truck drivers and future mobile work.
“With the organisation of this symposium we aim at developing and driving forward synergy between the academia, industry and policy makers involved in transport to boost gender fairness and inclusion in this sector,” states Wafaa Saleh, Chair of the International Committee of the Travel Demand Management (TDM) Symposium and DIAMOND project partner. “Bringing experts from around the world in various disciplines in the gender and transport area will help towards sharing ideas and foster discussion on how to address current challenges,” adds Maria Chiara Leva, Co-Chair of this TDM Symposium and Lecturer at the Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), as well as DIAMOND project Dissemination Manager.
The conference will also comprise presentations on TInnGO and DIAMOND project results, including Gender and Diversity Action Plans, educational guidelines, Corporate Social Responsibilities protocols, new designs and practical tools to help increase diversity in transport, both through education and employment, to boost a paradigm shift in the mobility sector in Europe.
Representatives from the TInnGO project will present at the conference the one-stop Observatory (available at transportgenderobservatory.eu) for policy-makers, scholars, journalists and social organisations involved in Smart Mobility, which includes an Open Data Repository, a survey on mobility patterns, an Open Innovation Platform with good practices and innovative design ideas, a learning centre with training materials and 14 inspirational case studies of successful women employed in the fields of transport and smart mobility. A large part of these results have been possible thanks to the activities performed by the 10 TInnGO hubs created across Europe (Baltic and Scandinavian hubs, and French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and UK hubs).
The conference will also showcase an education manual for gender inclusion in the transport sector and ten Gender and Diversity Action Plans (GaDAPs) developed by the hubs, which can be translated into different cultural context to develop gender and diversity sensitive smart mobility as a fundamental component of a smart city. In this context, TInnGO has established a set of five Gender Smart Indicators (affordable, effective, sustainable, attractive and inclusive) which can be used to measure the degree to which transport solutions meet the needs of various people.
“Our main goal is to provide a window to showcase and discuss a variety of issues relating to Gender and Diversity Sensitive Smart Mobility in new ways, reduce the distance between stakeholders at both regional and European levels and to contribute with new knowledge in the design and implementation of sustainable future strategies of transport”, explains Andree Woodcock, Professor at the Coventry University and TInnGO project coordinator.
On the other hand, partners from DIAMOND project, aiming at analysing and converting data into knowledge with notions of fairness to move towards a more inclusive and efficient transportation system from a gendered perspective, will present the methodological approach that was followed and the main results of a cross-European data collection campaign and later data analytics’ main results on barriers, opportunities and challenges faced by women in public transport, shared cycling services and as autonomous vehicles’ users, as well as employees in the transport sector.
During the event, a showcase of main DIAMOND-developed tools will be organised, comprising a demonstration of a self-diagnosis tool to provide recommendations regarding inclusion in diverse scenarios to obtain an equitable model in the transport systems. The tool, targeting transport operators and policy makers, will generate and disseminate recommendations for a fairer and more inclusive transport system and will identify challenges related to mobility from a gender perspective.
We want this project final event to translate EU-funded research results to the transport industry and policy makers and provide solutions and knowledge on how to understand and achieve a greater gender and diversity equality in transport and incorporate gender issues in their planning and design,” explains Patricia Castillo, coordinator of DIAMOND project from Eurecat Technology Centre.
Studies have shown how men’s and women’s travel patterns differ and how different access to transport is a major producer of gender inequality. The transport needs of the commuting wage earner are often privileged over the needs of (often female) homemakers and carers, who make more complicated journeys as part of their social and cultural roles and many countries do not record, model or recognize the need to support different journey types, thereby perpetuating transport poverty of women into the smart mobility arena.
Furthermore, gender segregation of jobs and unequal recruitment practices apply to the transport sector, which faces serious gender gaps with women making up only 22% of transport workers in Europe. Based on latest data available, in Europe, women employed in road and rail transport represent 14% of the workforce, 40% in air transport and 20% in river and maritime transport.
At both European and national levels, there are still serious gaps when it comes to recognition and inclusion of gender aspects in transport strategies, research and innovation. Particularly, in the context of smart cities, research on gender has been marginal so far, and limited attention has been placed in developing gender-specific policies, programmes, and mandates in transport – both on national and EU-level.
Along these lines, DIAMOND and TInnGO projects, started at the end of 2018, promoted the increase of the presence of women in this sector, adapting the characteristics and needs of women to changes and to the opportunities of the transport market and mobility.
Registration for TInnGO and DIAMOND final conference open freely here: www.bit.ly/GenderInTransportEventForm
