mangalore today

Dedicated study highlights insecure gender norms and poor road safety in DK


Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, June 22,2017: An urgent need for gender sensitive commuter‑centric road safety policy say researchers after their study found that commuter problems with public transportation rising in Mangaluru.


road safety


road safety 22


The research titled "Study of commuter problems and opinions in a fast developing coastal city of Mangalore in India: A gender perspective analysis" was recently published in the International Journal of Health & Allied Sciences (www.ijhas.in).

A cross-sectional study was carried out to assess commuter problems and study the opinion of commuters with regard to public transport and road safety by involving 139 commuters by purposive sampling who travel daily in the coastal city of Mangalore in Southern India using public transport.

The researchers, Edmond Fernandes, Abhay Nirgude, Poonam Naik, Neevan Dsouza from Yenepoya University and Soumya Shetty from Center for Health and Development (CHD), note that transport and commuting needs to be viewed from a more inclusive nature since it adds a very strong gender component says the Mangalore based researchers.

As part of the study survey, 83.5% participants felt the roads in the city were unsafe; 49.6% felt stressed due to travel and 51.1% felt the public transport is rarely safe for women to travel at night. Around 49.3% female participants found commuting difficult during rains and 62.1% males found commuting difficult. About 72.6% females found auto drivers rude sometimes. The study found out that public transport ought to be efficient to cater to growing number of commuters who travel for work and personal reasons so that travel related stress is reduced.


The Port City has 413 public transport buses and 594 service buses as per the information available with the Road Transport Office, Dakshina Kannada District as on September 2016. The total number of driving license holders as on September 2014 is 547,480.


"Even after nearly seven decades of Independence, women’s safety is not being guaranteed which is nothing but sign of a society still struggling to make its existence," says Dr. Edmond Fernandes.

Transport and commuting needs to be viewed from a more inclusive nature since it adds a very strong gender component says the Mangaluru based researchers. A research titled ‘Study of commuter problems and opinions in a fast developing coastal city of Mangalore in India: A gender perspective analysis’ was recently published in the International Journal of Health and Allied Sciences


The study concludes that issues of women and child safety during travel by public transport, the behaviour of auto drivers, the need to increase road patrolling during day and night will require sincere investment from policy makers and stakeholders. "It is the time to create a gender sensitive commuter‑centric road safety policy," they said.
The reports on rising Commuter, Public Transport Problems in Mangaluru City is noteworthy.