April 2, 2020

Florida’s Public Transit and Women’s Safety – Real and Perceived Concerns

This webinar summarizes a study that examined issues of women’s safety and security on public transit. The research conducted for the study indicates that there are shortcomings in addressing gender-based harassment on public transit and, more generally, in public spaces. Transit agencies tend to follow the current norm of treating harassment of women as a problem of individuals, rather than a problem in society of how women are treated. The study also included case study discussions with three transit agencies in Florida that provided insight into the agencies’ awareness of gender-based harassment and the types of initiatives that are being implemented to address the safety and security of all passengers and workers. Additional focus on the unique needs of women traveling in public space can pay off in terms of higher ridership, as well. In society, women should not have to simply accept that they will be the targets of gender-based harassment or worse. Transit agencies are in a unique position as public entities to lead the way in addressing gender-based harassment, not only by addressing incidents on their services, but by engaging with their communities to address these issues on a larger, societal scale. Download Handout

Presenter: Victoria Perk, Ph.D., Center for Urban Transportation Research

Victoria Perk is a Senior Research Associate at CUTR with 25 years of experience in the field of public transportation consisting of service planning, operations planning, safety, survey design/ administration/analysis, the National Transit Database (NTD), performance measurement, statistical analysis, econometrics, and research. Her more recent research has focused on performance evaluation, use of NTD data, transit safety, and bus rapid transit (BRT) topics including land use and property value impacts. She also has 20 years’ experience teaching various Economics courses at USF. Dr. Perk earned a B.A. in Economics and Management from Eckerd College, an M.A. in Economics from USF, and a Ph.D. in Economics also from USF. Dr. Perk is active in the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the Transportation Research Board (TRB). She is a Past Chair of the APTA Multimodal Operations Planning Technical Forum, and the current Chair for TRB Committee AP015, Transit Capacity and Quality of Service.