Corpn to conduct study on safety of public transportation

CHENNAI: In a bid to make the city safer for women and to address the gaps, the Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to conduct a baseline study to find out women's perception regarding access and safety in public spaces and public transport in the metropolis.

A Chennai Corporation document said the Gender and Policy Lab of the civic body will undertake a baseline study to document women's perception of access and safety and their satisfaction with the infrastructure and services in public spaces and public transport.

"This information will be provided to the concerned departments for future intervention planning. These departments include the Greater Chennai Police, Transport Department, Metropolitan Transport Corporation and the Social Welfare - Women Empowerment Department," the document added.

During the study, perceptions pertaining to safety and satisfaction while using different modes of transport within the city, benefits of free transportation aboard State-run buses, experience of availing the services of existing grievance redressal systems apart from collecting their suggestions on improving safety in public spaces.

The study will gather data from 3,000 women and girls above 18 years of age with the samples spread statistically across the 200 wards. The sample will be demographically spread across age, gender, caste, educational status, place of residence, income level and others.

The document pointed out data analysed by the World Bank on the gendered travel pattern from a survey conducted in 2018 to prepare the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for Chennai said that women use public transport and intermediate public transport as compared to men.

"Recent reports suggest that there has been an increase in crimes during the Covid induced lockdowns. While actual reporting offers a database of crimes against women, our societal system of "victim blaming" and other restraints frequently prohibit women from reporting a crime," the civic body said.

A study conducted by AWARE in 2017 in Chennai found that 75 per cent of women respondents have faced some form of harassment while using public transport.

It may be noted that the civic body is conducting an online survey regarding safety of parks across the city.