In recent years the green transition has become one of the most important milestones for cities to keep up with the ever-growing demand and necessity to implement sustainable solutions within all areas of urban development. By equipping many of the metropolitan frameworks with smart technology and I.o.T devices municipalities, changing practices, and collecting data, municipalities are defining “The New Green” through forward-thinking approaches and technological innovation.
One very common method of decreasing the carbon emissions in a city is to nudge the population to depend less on their own car as the first mode of transportation rather than opt for the public transportation system. To do such, it is important to understand the culture and people, sharing the space of a city and a closer look is necessary towards the behavior of people and the public transportation infrastructure itself, in terms of convenience, safety, and functionality.
Together with the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, we have developed the “Inclusify Project” to understand and improve the expense of women in connection to the usage of public transportation in the city of Barcelona.
A Future Shaped by Experiences
The usage of public transportation is a particularly complex case when it comes to the inherent experience of belonging to a certain social group while commuting by bus, metro, or train.
Not only can the external infrastructure of the system and traveling times hinder people from switching towards communal transportation but also the exposure to many different individuals within the caged environment of a train wagon holds its challenges.
In the city of Barcelona, women are more likely to use public transportation than men, as they use it for about 80% of their travels, which is 11 % higher than men.
Women are also more likely to become victims of sexual harassment, robbery, pickpocketing, or other street crimes, and specifically, in the city of Barcelona, 57% of women experienced some form of street harassment in 2021.
Traveling with public transportation as a woman can intensify these altercations due to the closed environment and fundamentally shape the perception of reality and the future through negative traveling experiences. For that reason, the public transportation department of Barcelona planned to directly understand the lived experiences of women while traveling through the WeSolve framework.
