“UITP welcomes Japan’s efforts on gender mainstreaming.” — Christel Goossens and Lindsey Barr (UITP)
UITP and its Gender Policy
UITP is the International Association of Public Transport. Members include various companies and organizations active in public transport and urban mobility. Our mission is sustainability in cities around the world. We aim to achieve this mission by supporting our members and providing sustainable public transport in urban and suburban areas. We also carry out international advocacy activities. UITP creates knowledge and provides opportunities for networking, peer-to-peer learning and business development through exhibitions and conferences. It has more than 2000 member organizations on all continents around the world, covering all forms of sustainable urban transport. It encompasses everything from traditional forms such as buses, subways and suburban railways to modern forms of sharing such as car sharing and bicycle sharing. Members include not only public transport operators but also government agencies, the manufacturing industry and academic institutions. This means that any organization involved in urban mobility is eligible to join UITP. Gender policy is a key focus of UITP’s activities. There are not enough female workers at the frontline level like mechanics, maintenance workers and drivers. Especially for bus drivers, some organizations have a very low number of female workers. It’s the same for maintenance and engineering. There are many reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is the organizational culture of public transportation. It is very difficult to change the culture because of the strong male-centered mindset. This includes lack of facilities for women, lack of image of female drivers and lack of engagement from the management. Also, shift work and split shift work are less suitable for women. Of course, it can be very difficult for men as well as women if they have a family. Also, the vehicles can be less suitable for women because women tend to be smaller than men. There are a lot of barriers, but we do a lot of work to attract women. As we are a members’ association, we do not run initiatives directly for female users. Instead, we collect good practices from our members and share them through committees, webinars, and publications. Operators themselves are implementing many measures to improve women’s safety and comfort, such as women-only coaches and waiting areas, dedicated toilets and lactation rooms, as well as anti-harassment campaigns, better lighting, more CCTV, and other security improvements. These efforts aim to make women feel safer—and a safer environment for women benefits all passengers.
Current project
UITP’s gender policy has three aspects. The first aspect is internal to the organization, that is, our staff composition. We strive to be an inclusive employer and have implemented several policies that emphasize the gender balance among staff and managers. For example, we ensure that there is no wage gap between men and women, that is, equal pay between men and women. For management positions, we ensure that at least one man and one woman must be shortlisted as candidates to ensure gender balance. The second aspect is as an association with members. UITP has many governing bodies—such as an executive committee consisting of about 20 elected members, a policy committee responsible for policies on public transport made up of about 100 members, and around 30 working groups—and we work to ensure gender balance in the composition of all of them. Our policy launched in 2019 requires that all committees must include both men and women, and that no conference panel consists of only one gender, and it set a goal to double the number of women speakers at UITP events. For leadership elections, both a male and female candidate must be put forward. The third aspect is promoting gender balance across the public transport sector. We have an active D&I working group with members from all over the world, with D&I experts and people who care about diversity and inclusion. In addition, activities and awareness-raising presentations are given to the entire membership, placing this theme at the centre of UITP’s activities and reaching out to all UITP committees. We place the highest priority on this theme in our activities for our members.
Project Results and Evaluation
We have doubled the number of female speakers at events. We had set a goal of doubling the number of women speakers at events in 2019, which we were able to achieve at all events around 2024. Summit reached 43% women speakers in the last editions. When I look for speakers for an event, I always tell my colleagues, “We need to strike a balance, so please invite a female speaker.” So it’s the result of a lot of hard work. The proportion of women increased from 0 to 38% at the executive board, from 11% to 33% in policy committees, from 19% to 25% in committees, and from 10% to 45% at internal management boards. The first woman president of the association was elected in its history of more than 140 years. Her election was an important milestone. UITP has won three awards for these policies.
Future Prospects
At the European and international level, we also collaborate with labor unions because gender issues are also very important for them. We have also signed agreements with the European and International Transport Workers’ Federations (ETF and ITF) on recommendations for women’s employment. So there is a strong determination to work with the unions to improve the situation. We are currently in the process of reviewing the contents of the agreement. As the shortage of personnel is particularly serious, we will make serious efforts to take measures to increase the workforce. Then the obvious solution is attracting women into the sector. Public transport is a major employer globally. In some cities, public transport is the largest employer. It creates millions of direct and indirect jobs worldwide. But the sector also suffers a staff shortage, and women represent an untapped pool of workers. There are a lot of women out there who are underutilized because the seats, toilets, depots, shift patterns and so on are not designed for women. I know it’s not that simple, yet in some ways it is. So we are very passionate about this topic because we see that it makes a big difference to society if you think a little bit about it. And if we mainstream gender in everything we do, we will get very good results.
Message to Japan
UITP welcomes Japan’s efforts on gender mainstreaming. The majority of public transport users are women globally, and we know that women rely more on public transport than men. It is so in many places in the world. However, public transport networks tend to be designed around the male experience of shuttling between home and work despite that women travel differently than men. If public transport wants to address the needs of the majority of passengers, it should think more about women’s perspectives from the design stage and throughout. That’s easier said than done, but one thing is certain: if more women are in positions of network design, operation and planning in the authorities that decide how public transport operates, they will certainly have that role. If that happens, women’s perspectives will naturally come into play more. It’s very important to have a female perspective both in terms of the workforce and in terms of passengers. Gender-disaggregated data is also crucial as women and men travel differently. In general, most operators are not collecting enough disaggregated data. Ministries like Japan’s MLIT can play a key role by ensuring operators collect this essential data.