‘Pink ticket’ report: 77% of women in Delhi feel unsafe travelling in a bus after 5 pm

As per the report, one in four women have started using buses after travel was made fare-free. After the scheme’s introduction, 23 per cent of women have started using buses at least four times a week, and 15 per cent of women, who rarely or never used buses before the scheme, now use them regularly.

When it comes to challenges faced by women, the survey says that a little less than 50 per cent of women bus users feel “mostly safe” while travelling to the bus stop, waiting there, and riding a bus. The survey also suggests that 77 per cent of women feel unsafe while travelling by bus after 5 pm and two in three women find the lighting at the bus stop inadequate.

Frequency also remains a challenge as 87 per cent of the women reported waiting more than 10 minutes, while a good 13 per cent waited more than 30 minutes for the bus.

“Of the 510 responses we collected, 95 per cent came from field surveys and 5 per cent from web-based channels, including social media platforms (primarily Twitter and Instagram) and WhatsApp groups,” the report states.

The impact of the scheme on the perception of women towards public transport across income groups is noteworthy. After the ‘pink ticket’ was introduced, 88 per cent of women surveyed perceived the scheme as impactful in promoting bus use among women.

More than 75 per cent of women bus users in the lowest-income households use the bus at least three to five days a week, whereas 60 per cent of women bus users in middle-income households travel by bus that often. Interestingly, 57 per cent of women in the monthly household income bracket of Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh ride a bus daily, the highest among all income groups.

The survey shows that when asked how often women currently (in the past month) use the fare-free public bus transport in Delhi, 45 per cent said they did not use it even once.

The survey also notes that only 75 per cent of women in Delhi said they can use the bus when they typically need to travel. More than two in three (69 per cent) women can use the Delhi Metro when they generally need to travel, and shared auto rickshaws and e-rickshaws are estimated to be the most commonly available mode of transport for women, considered available by 64 per cent of the women in Delhi.

“This highlights their ubiquity and key role in women’s mobility as an important intermediary mode of transport. Their role has become indispensable with the lack of reliable public transport, particularly for making short trips of less than 2 km, which, as the available evidence from transport and time use studies suggests, are the distances women in Delhi most commonly travel in their daily routine. Cabs and taxis were found available by 34 per cent of women,” the report says.

Analysing bus use among different age groups, younger women have emerged as travelling more often as compared to middle-aged and older women as 64 per cent of this group ride a bus daily. However, a larger proportion of older women travel regularly by bus. Among women bus users above 45 years, only 6 per cent said they take public transport rarely.