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Mobility-as-a-service still fails to address women’s safety


The UK’s roads are some of the main culprits of its greenhouse gas emissions. And in 2020, 92% of passenger kilometers traveled in the UK was made by cars, vans and taxis. That means getting around by private vehicle has a disproportionately large negative impact on the environment.

What’s more, only 5.8% of vehicles on UK roads are ultra-low emission. Even electric vehicles, though they create less pollution when driven, have a substantial environmental impact thanks to the materials used to create them. Getting rid of them has an environmental cost, too. And in some areas, car ownership is growing – the county of Hertfordshire is expected to become home to 20.9% more private cars by 2031.

If sustainability and mobility are equally important concerns, how do we make sure they’re both addressed? One solution is encouraging people to share transport through a system known as “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS).

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MaaS is essentially a personalized travel management platform that slots together available modes of transport in an area to create a unified journey for its users. For example, Finnish MaaS company Whim allows people to use shared cars, bicycles, and public transport to create a journey that works for them.

In some cases, this has been very successful in reducing the number of private cars on roads. In several cities in Finland, for example, MaaS has pushed private car usage down from 40% to 20%. However, there’s something that’s been overlooked by transport designers (who, at least in Europe, are overwhelmingly male): the fact that women’s transport needs are different to men’s.

MaaS and gender

Women, who generally across the world have less access to private cars, face more risks than men when getting from one place to another. Across Europe, an average of 37% of women (compared to 72% of men) own their own car, while 51% (81% of men) hold a driving license. Yet despite this, women are still less likely than men to use MaaS. In EU countries including Norway, Finland, Germany, and Denmark, it’s been tried by 40% of women compared to 49% of men.

Reasons for these disparities are partly tied to gender roles. Women are more likely to be the prime caretaker of their household, meaning that they have multiple errands to run, often requiring multiple journeys within a shorter radius.

safety for women