by Michelle Specktor, researcher at Technion | Israel Institute of Technology and Floridea Di Ciommo, codirector at cambiaMO | changing MObility
Women on the move: empowered by new mobility options. This is what emerged during a first informal online chatter among Michelle Spektor and Floridea di Ciommo, the two INDIMO pilot site leaders (Galilee and Madrid) dealing especially with gender issues in daily transport choices.
Mobility is key in our contemporary lives in order to participate in all kinds of activities and to ensure basic needs and beyond. Female mobility has different characteristics, patterns, and behaviors since gender and cultural background strongly affect mobility choices. Using an intersectional approach in transport research, especially focusing on gender, ethnicity, and employment status, pose possible insights for policy makers and software developers.
The project INDIMO aims to provide a Universal Design Manual of digital interfaces and tools taking into consideration socially excluded user needs, including ecosystem contributions from developers of digital mobility and delivery apps, human factors experts, and policy makers.
In the Galilee Pilot context, Arab women suffer from a trifold discrimination: as Arabs in Israel, as women in a traditional society, and as residents in rural villages and towns lacking sufficient public transport infrastructure. Aiming to overcome gender and cultural mobility barriers and allow Arab women greater accessibility to work, study and social activities a new informal Ride-Sharing App named Safarcon was developed with the support of the Israel chief scientist Office of the Ministry of Transport.
Addressing various aspects of transport poverty in the Arab society in general, and of women among their traditional culture, this Informal Ride-Sharing App is designed to enable Arab women greater mobility possibilities and mitigate the consequences of a poor public transport systems in such areas.
The Galilee pilot fieldwork aims at generating insights by interviewing Arab women and therefore improving digital mobility services taking into consideration their specific cultural and gender needs, in addition to the more generic safety considerations when traveling alone.
Looking forward, successful pilot projects such as the one established by INDIMO have the power to foster an inclusive change that will serve Arab women. Women on the move empowerment is not only linked to broader mobility options but more importantly linked to wider academic, employment and lifestyle opportunities.
Follow this discussion in the COP area hosted on the
sources:
http://www.transportation.org.il/sites/default/files/pirsum/mobility05final_0.pdf
Di Ciommo, F., Magrinya, F., Rondinella, G., & Shiftan, Y. (2019). A behavioral framework for needs-based transport assessment. In Measuring Transport Equity (pp. 265-275). Elsevier.
