Women’s Issues in Transportation: Summary of the 4th International Conference, Volume 1: Conference Overview and Plenary Papers (2011)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

9 BReAKOuT SeSSION Women’s Travel Patterns and Behavior Sandra Rosenbloom, University of Arizona Jane Gould, University of California, Los Angeles Peter Jorritsma, KiM Institute for Transport Policy Analysis The session on women’s travel patterns and behav-ior, moderated by Sandra Rosenbloom, included discussions on an experiment in changing people’s behavior with respect to transit use and evolutionary changes in women’s travel behavior in the Netherlands. a CommiTmenT To ConTinue? Comparing women and men CommuTers who Choose TransiT over driving alone Jane Gould and Jiangping Zhou A decline in the number of women taking transit to work has occurred because transit does not easily accommo- date the multiple demands and household responsi- bilities women fulfill. With this perspective, this study asked whether opportunities are available to reverse the trend. This study was a 3-month experiment in promot- ing transit use through a program called “Try Transit.” The study required people to give up their parking passes in return for a free transit pass. Respondents were very carefully self-selected into this trial. Women were inter- ested in taking transit to the extent that they did not have family responsibilities limiting their participation. The study was deemed successful because 70% of the men and women involved agreed after the experiment to continue not driving alone on the commute to work. One important outcome or focus in changing behavior is to change people’s impressions of transit. The research- ers recognized the importance of public education as a component of the experiment. They used a hybrid com- munications method that included both a website with initial information and a trip-planning calculator and face-to-face education when people came in to relinquish their parking passes. Travel distance, household size, number of vehicles, and age were used as control variables. The only differ- ence found between women and men pertained to age. The men’s ages fit a normal bell curve, but in the case of women, the curve was more of a u shape, with those ages 26 through 35 and age 55 or greater more likely to use transit. These women were found to be less time starved and had smaller families. The decision to continue using transit after the experiment did not appear to be gender related. Positive comments associated with the experi- ment included the following: transit was less stressful than driving alone; participants got more exercise; and participants were able to multitask while commuting to work on transit (e.g., answer e-mail). Changing Travel paTTerns of women in The neTherlands Marie-José Olde Kalter, Peter Jorritsma, and Lucas Harms In this study, the KiM researchers used data from the Dutch National Travel Survey, which is conducted every year, and the National Time Budget Survey, which is conducted every 5 years. The Dutch National Survey enabled researchers to study annual developments and changes in women’s travel behavior for the period 1985

10 WOMeN’S ISSueS IN TRANSPORTATION, vOluMe 1 to 2007, while the National Time Budget Survey pro- vided data on some factors, such as time spent on activi- ties, over a 5-year period. The survey results show the differences between men’s and women’s travel are shrinking, largely because women are traveling more often and greater distances. Women increasingly prefer traveling by car as opposed to biking, walking, or using transit. Men spend slightly more time (6%) on work-related travel. Attending to household and care-providing responsibilities increased 35.5% (10 hours) for men, while decreasing by 18.4% (22 hours) for women; however, a large gap remains, with women still shouldering the largest portion of these activities. The changes in women’s travel behavior can be attributed to several related developments in the Nether- lands. First, the number of women in the population has increased by 10%. Also, women are more likely to be educated than in past years, and those with an education are far more likely to be employed. Between 1985 and 2007, women’s employment increased by 32%. Addi- tional characteristics that contribute to the increase in women’s travel by car include the following: • Women are more likely to marry at a later age; wait until later in life to have children; and have smaller families (i.e., fewer children), all of which contributes to increased workforce participation. • Driver licensing and car ownership have increased dramatically among women. • A very large percentage (75%) of women in the workforce hold part-time jobs. • Women are traveling more frequently and greater distances to pursue leisure activities. The study suggests several approaches for addressing the increase in car use and decrease in the use of walking, biking, or using transit, including educational campaigns, pricing policies, spatial policies, and telecommuting. TopiCs for furTher researCh 1. Develop a better understanding of the decrease in walking, biking, and using public transport. 2. Continue to study the development of more equi- table sharing of household responsibilities and its impact on women’s travel by car. 3. Develop a methodology for counting multimodal trips such as walking to the bus stop, taking the bus, biking from the bus to work, and so forth. 4. Study the mobility patterns of women who do not work and women who work full time or part time. 5. Implement the methodology of the university of California, los Angeles, study “Comparing Women and Men Commuters Who Choose Transit over Driv- ing Alone” in other cities to determine the appropriate length of time necessary to unfreeze the habit of driving alone. If possible, provide options in addition to driving or taking the bus. 6. Develop education campaigns to encourage a more equitable distribution of household and care-giving work among men and women. 7. Study the gender-specific needs of transit passengers. 8. Develop an educational campaign on the relation- ship between transit and multitasking (e.g., transit pro- vides more time to attend to household tasks, leisure, etc., and it is much safer). 9. explore how and if flexible, multimodal commuter packages attract more working women to use transit some days and drive on others. 10. Identify what factors women weight when deter- mining whether transit suits their lifestyle and travel patterns.