Assessing the Safety and Comfort of Women During Ridesharing in India

Ridesharing is one of the effective tools to solve some of the environmental and congestion problems; however, it is not very well used by Indian women because of the safety concerns. Lack of prior planning of addressing the issues which influence the ridesharing choices of women, is one of the main hurdles to the growth of ridesharing practices in developing countries like India. This study is designed to examine the safety perceptions during ridesharing among women residing in urban areas in India. A comprehensive questionnaire with six different thematic sections (such as: demographic attributes, safety perceptions with different co-riders, importance given to cost, privacy, comfort etc. and various other situational factors concerning ridesharing for women) is prepared. The data from 293 female respondents are collected through circulating the questionnaire majorly via online sources; but, few of the data are collected through face-to-face interviews also. The safety perceptions during ridesharing are modelled with an ordered logistic regression approach. The model results suggest that women in their older age and those with higher household income have lesser trust in ridesharing facilities when compared to younger women and those with lower household income respectively. The results also show that women feel safer if the ridesharing group is larger (3-4 people accompanying). Moreover, the perceived safety levels during day and night also affect the safety perceptions of ridesharing. A focus group discussion is also conducted to validate the results and to obtain in-depth knowledge of concerns of poor safety during ridesharing.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE70 Standing Committee on Women's Issues in Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Meshram, Aditi
  • Choudhary, Pushpa
  • Velaga, Nagendra R
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
• Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Comfort; Females; Logistic regression analysis; Ridesharing; Safety
• Geographic Terms: India
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01632164
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 17-02960
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 5 2017 9:57AM