Intro: Self-Assessment Tool » WomenMobilizeWomen

Self-Assessment Tool for Just and Feminist Transport Systems

This self-assessment tool helps public transport service providers and mobility authorities identify strengths and gaps in mainstreaming gender in public transport across planning, implementation, operation, and monitoring.

Estimated time ~10–20 minutes

What is this tool?

The Self-Assessment Tool for Just and Feminist Transport Systems supports institutions in identifying strengths and gaps in gender mainstreaming across public transport systems. It is designed as a practical, self-guided checklist to support institutional reflection and priority-setting. It helps institutions:

Prioritize action by identifying what to improve first.

Improve access, comfort, and safety for women and other vulnerable groups.

Create a baseline you can repeat over time to track progress.

Important note

This tool is not an audit and does not rank cities or institutions. It is intended for internal learning and improvement.

Where change happens

Hover (desktop) or tap (mobile) to see what gender mainstreaming means at each stage.

Before you start

Basic understanding of gender inequalities in transport (see Glossary if needed).

Familiarity with your institution’s structure, roles, and responsibilities.

Access to relevant institutional information (ideally disaggregated by gender where possible).
If gender-disaggregated data is limited or fragmented, WMW’s Bridging the Gender Data Gap in Mobility offers principles and open insights to support reflection on what data is missing and why it's relevant.

Step-by-step

1 Select whether you are a Transport Service Provider or a Mobility Authority.
2 Answer based on actions and practices within your institution (not whether they are fully implemented citywide).
3 Choose one response per question.
Yes 2 Partially 1 No 0
4 Review your results: overall maturity level and scores by stage.

This self-assessment is a starting point — it helps you identify priorities and track progress over time.

Glossary

Core concepts are shown first. Expand for more terms.

Accessibility and Quality of Infrastructure

Refers to the extent to which facilities and services are optimally designed and operated to ensure a satisfactory and equitable experience for all users, especially women and other vulnerable groups.

Active participation of women

Recognizing women as an important actor in the planning and operation of transport services—not only from a user's point of view.

Harassment / violence

Refers to any form of unwanted, intimidating or violent behavior—verbal, physical or sexual—often directed toward women and gender-diverse people. A feminist perspective seeks to eradicate these forms of violence and promote a safe, respectful, inclusive transport environment for all users.

Inclusion

Ensuring all genders have equal access, safety and comfort in transport. It includes considering the specific needs of women and gender-diverse people in design and operations, preventing gender-based harassment and violence, and promoting gender equity in all aspects of public transport.

Mobility of care

Trips made to care for others (e.g., children, elderly people, people who are sick). A feminist approach recognizes and values care work—often performed by women—and supports public transport systems that are accessible, safe, and responsive to these needs.

Travel experience

Comprehensive qualitative perception experienced by women and their dependents during a trip. It is shaped by comfort, safety (inside and outside the system), time invested, staff treatment, and availability of relevant information for effective decision-making.

Complementary elements of transportation systems

Aspects such as adequate lighting, clear signage, accessible and safe infrastructure, and user services that consider the needs of women and people of diverse gender. These elements aim to improve safety, accessibility and comfort, promoting a more inclusive and equitable travel experience.

Comfort

Quality that implies safe, equitable and respectful access. It includes personal safety, prevention of harassment, accessibility, and consideration of gender-specific needs in the design and operation of transport.

Demand for service

The need for transport services that are accessible, safe, comfortable and equitable for all genders. It involves recognizing and responding to women's and gender-diverse people's mobility needs (e.g., flexible schedules, safe routes, appropriate vehicles) to ensure an inclusive public transport service.

Dependent persons

Individuals who require assistance for mobility, such as children, older people, and people with disabilities. Feminist inclusion seeks safe, comfortable and dignified access, considering specific needs and promoting supportive infrastructure and policies.

Difference between gender and feminism

Gender refers to social and cultural constructs surrounding gender identities. Feminism is a movement with a political dimension that challenges gender inequalities and promotes equality and justice for all people.

Disaggregation of data

Data analysis that distinguishes between different genders and needs. This approach identifies gender inequalities in transport access and use and supports planning more inclusive and equitable transport services.

Feminist urbanism

Planning and design of cities and transport systems that consider the needs and experiences of women and gender-diverse people. It promotes gender equity in urban mobility, ensures safe and equitable access, and recognizes care-related mobility.

Gender

The characteristics and roles associated with men and women are shaped by cultural norms, expectations and values that vary over time and among different societies.

Gender inequalities

Systematic and unfair disparities in opportunities, resources, power and treatment between people of different gender identities. They are reinforced by social, cultural and economic norms and can shape access to education, the labor market, politics, family relations and representation.

Gender perspectives (as defined in the IKI guidelines)

Gender-negative: intentionally defends and reinforces unequal gender roles, relations, norms and discrimination.
Gender-blind: ignores unequal gender roles, rights, responsibilities, relationships, norms and gender-based discrimination and likely defends them.
Gender-sensitive: recognizes unequal gender roles, relations and norms, but does not address them or addresses them only marginally.
Gender-responsive: actively addresses the negative consequences of unequal gender roles, relations and norms.
Gender-transformative: addresses the underlying causes and social, structural or value-based roots of unequal gender roles, power relations and norms.

Intermodality

Points designed to facilitate shifts from one mode of transport to another. Walking, public transport and intermodal travel are central to women's lives, while men often make more linear home–work journeys. For people living in suburbs, intermodal integration is especially relevant to access opportunities concentrated in central areas.

Intersectional perspective

Intersectionality highlights how gender interacts with other factors such as race, class, age or disability, shaping different experiences and inequalities. The concept was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) and builds on Black feminist movements. In Latin America, Black women often face multiple disadvantages in transport quality and access compared to other groups.

Labor Participation in the Transportation Sector

Active and equitable integration of women across the sector, including operational, technical and managerial roles. It includes actions and policies that remove barriers, promote inclusive environments, support leadership opportunities, and ensure working conditions meet women's specific needs.

Modal distribution and unseen care trips

“Modal split” describes how trips are distributed across modes, but it often fails to recognize “care trips” (e.g., taking children to school, accompanying relatives, household-related tasks). Standard travel-motive categories can dilute care-related mobility, while results often focus on the main mode, making care travel less visible.

Mobility of Care (travel patterns)

Commuting patterns associated with unpaid care activities mainly performed by women. This includes chain trips and the need for conditions that facilitate intermodality to fulfill tasks related to caring for dependents (children, older people, people with disabilities).

Public and Internal Policies and Regulations

Guidelines and regulations that integrate gender equality into public transport. They ensure the needs and experiences of all people—especially women and their dependents—are addressed across planning, implementation, operation and monitoring.

Race

A socially constructed concept. Racial categories vary across cultures and do not have a solid scientific basis. Perceptions of race are shaped by historical narratives, political power and ideologies and have been used to justify oppression and hierarchy.

Security

A state of integral well-being beyond the absence of physical threats. It includes personal, emotional, economic and social security. In a feminist context, it includes eliminating gender discrimination and violence, including harassment and discrimination in public life and workplaces.

Technical studies with a gender perspective

Research and analysis that considers gender differences in transport use and access. It identifies barriers faced by women and gender-diverse people and informs more inclusive and equitable transport policies and systems.

Work overload

The overburdening of women with household and care-related work compared to men, driven by entrenched gender norms that assign women disproportionate responsibility for unpaid domestic work and care.

Assess your transport system

Acknowledgements

This self-assessment tool is the result of a collective and collaborative process that has evolved over several years, building on the work, experience, and shared learning of feminist practitioners, researchers, and transport professionals.

The foundations of this work were laid in 2020, when Women in Motion – Mujeres en Movimiento (WIM) together with Hivos en Despacio developed the methodology Open Contracting for Gender-Sensitive Public Transportation. The aim was to identify gender-sensitive criteria and indicators to support more inclusive public transport systems through open data and improved contracting processes. This work responded to a long-standing need expressed by cities and practitioners for clearer structures and practical guidance to integrate a gender perspective into public transport projects, particularly in contexts with limited technical expertise on gender and mobility.

Building on this foundation, the methodology was further developed through applied research and collaboration with cities in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Colombia. These efforts helped deepen the understanding of local institutional dynamics, data gaps, and operational constraints, and highlighted the importance of translating gender concepts into concrete, actionable guidance for both authorities and service providers.

This tool was subsequently piloted in Cali, Colombia, in collaboration with MetroCali, within an existing institutional commitment to gender mainstreaming. The piloting process highlighted both the value of the tool and the challenges institutions face, such as fragmented data, sectoral silos, and limited awareness of how seemingly “neutral” elements, like lighting, infrastructure design, or operational practices, shape gendered mobility experiences.

An international webinar marked the public launch of the tool, creating space to share lessons learned and engage a broader global audience. These exchanges reinforced the tool’s role as a pre self-assessment: a practical entry point for reflection, learning, and dialogue, rather than a ranking or audit mechanism.

This self-assessment tool was made possible by the individuals and organizations listed below, whose expertise, shared learning, and long-term commitment to advancing just and gender-responsive transport systems shaped its development.