How do we design our urban spaces to be and feel safer? It's not as simple as installing cameras everywhere to watch over everyone. In this episode, our wonderful host Brittany Atkins chats with expert guests Marianne Weinreich, Debbie Dekkers, and Dan Campsall about how the presence (or absence) of safety in mobility and urban planning can be affected by gender, age, lifestyle, and more. So sit back, plug in your headphones, and enjoy this meaningful discussion.
Some interesting further reading for all our curious listeners:
Prepared collaboratively by leading UK road safety and mobility experts and organisations, Safe Roads for All calls for Government to direct a Safe and Healthy Mobility Strategy and Action Plan for Roads: https://www.saferoadsforall.org/
The global plan for the Decade of Action on Road Safety: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/global-plan-for-the-decade-of-action-for-road-safety-2021-2030
How do we design our urban spaces to be and feel safer? It's not as simple as installing cameras everywhere to watch over everyone. In this episode, our wonderful host Brittany Atkins chats with expert guests Marianne Weinreich, Debbie Dekkers, and Dan Campsall about how the presence (or absence) of safety in mobility and urban planning can be affected by gender, age, lifestyle, and more. So sit back, plug in your headphones, and enjoy this meaningful discussion.
Some interesting further reading for all our curious listeners:
Prepared collaboratively by leading UK road safety and mobility experts and organisations, Safe Roads for All calls for Government to direct a Safe and Healthy Mobility Strategy and Action Plan for Roads: https://www.saferoadsforall.org/
The global plan for the Decade of Action on Road Safety: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/global-plan-for-the-decade-of-action-for-road-safety-2021-2030
Hello and welcome to episode 12 of the conversations in the park podcast, a place for meaningful discussions about mobility created by y mobility. I'm Brittany Atkins, your host and resident mobility enthusiast. Today we've brought together three amazing guests to discuss the issue of safety in urban mobility, particularly how we can design our cities to be and feel safer for all citizens. We're happy to once again be collaborating with the EIT urban mobility as our sponsor. So settle down, get comfy, and let's get started. My first guest today is Debbie Dekkers, program manager at CTO innovation office at the city of Amsterdam. Hi, Debbie, please do introduce yourself to our guests.
Debbie:My name is Debbie Dekkers and I work for the innovation office of the city of Amsterdam. And our role is to make our cities future proof and to be prepared for future mobility and everything that's coming our way.
Brittany:Thank you, Debbie. We also have Marianne Weinreich, market manager Global Smart Mobility at Ramboll. Hi, Marianne, please do introduce yourself to our guests as well.
Marianne:Hi, Brittany, and thank you for the introduction. Yes, my name is Marianne Weinreich. I work in Ramboll, a big Danish but international engineering and design consultancy. But I'm not an engineer or traffic planner myself. But I have worked with sustainable mobility Policy and Promotion for more than 20 years. And my passion is sustainable mobility, and especially cycling. And I also chair the cycling embassy of Denmark.
Brittany:Brilliant. Thank you so much, Marianne. And last but not least, we have Dan Campsall, chairman of Agilysis. Hi, Dan, how's it going? Please do share a bit more about yourself to our listeners.
Dan:Yeah, thanks, Brittany. So as you say, I'm Dan Campsall. I'm the chairman of Agilysis, which is a sort of mission oriented consultancy that focuses on transport safety; our goal is to transform lives through healthier and safer communities. I also am the vice chair of the parliamentary Advisory Council for transport safety in the UK. So for my sins spent about 20 years trying to push forward the agenda on road safety in particular.
Brittany:Excellent, well, we're very lucky to have a mix of you from such diverse backgrounds and you know, discussing a topic that's so important - we all want to be and feel safe when we travel. So thank you for being here today. I'm gonna kick off with a question to all of you. What does safety mean to you? When we use the word safety, what comes to mind? And perhaps what parts of safety are you focused on in your roles? Debbie, I'm going to invite you to start off with that question on what does safety mean to you?
Unknown:Thank you, we as city governments are usually very concerned about physical safety of our streets and people who use it. But for me, as a Innovation Officer, we know that vehicles get smarter, you will share information about some occasion with transport operators. So for me, safety is far beyond physical. It's actually about data safety, privacy, and how to protect our travelers when using these new kinds of mobility modes.
Brittany:Thank you, Debbie. And Marianne, how about yourself. When we use the word safety? What comes to mind?
Marianne:Yeah, of course, traffic safety, that we can make sure that in our everyday life that we can move around our cities and not be injured or seriously injured or killed for that matter. But also a personal feeling of security or safety when you move around when it comes more to harassment, assault, where specifically women have some concerns around that.
Brittany:Yep. Unfortunately, I know those far too well, and how about yourself, Dan, when you think about safety, what comes to mind? What does it mean to you?
Dan:So I think for me, the thing is, safety is only one of those things that we notice the absence of. So it's only when we feel endangered when we feel at risk that suddenly safety comes into our consciousness. And I think what we really want is a transport system, where people don't have to think about safety. It's a value of our transport systems, that people are able to walk out their door, whether they're going to the shops to access education, or employment, or social activity. And actually, they're able to do so in safety without having to think, you know, should I choose this mode? Or should I choose that mode? How do I manage my risk? What's the safest way of me making this journey? We actually want transport systems where safety is just inherent in the system, and isn't something that road users have to think about.
Brittany:So true, Dan, such a lovely answer. Marianne we was having a chat previous to the recording today. And you mentioned a book that I'm sure a lot of our listeners will have read and if not they might already have it on their bookshelves but might need that little nudge to take it off, give it a dust and actually give it a read. So yeah. Would you mind chatting a little about what you've been reading recently and how that's relevant to this topic?
Marianne:Yes, the book you're referring to is Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez that has a subtitle, you know, exposing data bias in a world designed for men. And one of the topics that she has studied in there is actually around safety and security. And because my focus is mostly people walking and cycling outside the cars, but one of her research fields is actually car design, and how that's also biased in a way because the safety features within the car are designed for an average height and weight, male, and that means that women have a 47% larger risk of being seriously injured when driving a car simply because the safety features are out of position when a woman gets into the car and then puts the seat further to the window and is then out of safety position. So it's both in our vehicles that we need more focus on making sure that it fits different sizes and different genders, but also outside the vehicles in our streets that we design for those who need it the most. For instance, like the organization 8 to 80 cities that have a focus on designing for the eight year old child, and the 80 year old man and woman, the pensioner. And if we manage to do that it's safe for everybody.
Brittany:Thank you, Mariana. Funnily enough, I should probably divert our listeners to also listen to the Women in Mobility podcast that was recorded several weeks ago, we spoke about and I learned something new on that session that female crashed dummies either didn't exist or are only just coming out, which feels a little unfortunate. But yeah, it's something important for us to be mindful of. So as we've been talking about the brilliant book, invisible women, I think it would be nice for us to start talking about inclusivity in safety, maybe I've just touched kind of lightly on something with the maybe only one design of crash dummies which felt like a shock to me to learn. So how do we ensure everyone on the road is safe? Are there any other great examples we can share from perhaps individuals or organizations or research studies looking at this? So that was a brilliant one you've already brought to the table, my enter on the 8 to 80 organization? I'm certainly going to be doing some research on them later. But yeah, Debbie, perhaps do you have any thoughts on any individuals really leading the way in this area or studies that you've seen in your role?
Debbie:Yes, we recently did a study on and found out that especially the elderly people in Amsterdam, are afraid to use the bicycle mainly, because they can lose their balance or direction speed slows down while they age, so we try to make sure that our very complex cross roads, we leave more time for them to cross the road or to turn left or make it easier to go straight instead of go left and then across the streets. Another very interesting example when we use data to make sure that our transport stops are accessible for people with disability it's called halted buddy, it's a Dutch websites were halted means stop and buddy is a buddy, it's an app where you can access the tool you're using. So for example, a wheelchair or you are with a child's carrier. So when you exit when you want to use public transport, and you are in a wheelchair, or you use a child's carrier, you can see which stop is accessible for you. And the app can help you out where to go next, or there's use papers and stuff like that to make sure everyone can use public transport
Brittany:That's so important and I've got so many friends myself that are with, you know, they're mums with young babies and toddlers, and they just give up on the idea of public transport altogether, because nobody at the station is allowed to help them, let alone kind of failing to offer to help. So it's really unfortunate. Dan, any thoughts from yourself on hidden inequalities like things we're currently failing to consider when designing transport systems or designing modes of transport that are ensuring everyone is safe and thought of and encouraged to use transport?
Dan:Yeah, I think that's a really good question. So I think we've made some progress in thinking about accessibility of some parts of the transport system. But one of the things that's of interest to us are what are some of the hidden inequalities that still exist? So over the last few years, we've done some work on issues particularly around deprivation and more recently around ethnicity. So we identified that when you analyze the Road injury risk of children from some of our more deprived communities, actually, they can be as much as five times more at risk than those from some of the most affluent ones. And there's all sorts of issues in there to do with the quality of the infrastructure, how far they have to travel, to access services, the kinds of roads that they have to traverse in order to be able to get to play areas or to school and those sorts of things. But we have definitely got some structural inequalities there that still need to be addressed. And they're not really being thought about. And then we also did some work quite recently with the UK charity, Living Streets, looking at the combination of ethnicity, walking and deprivation and found that people from some of our more deprived ethnicly diverse communities, as pedestrians are at much greater risk than than those in other parts of the wider community. So I think actually, when we start to drive into the data, as Marianne highlighted with invisible women, you start to understand that actually, there are bits of the population that we are not serving well with our transport systems. And there's still quite a long way to go to address the inequalities that exist.
Brittany:Thanks, Dan, such an important thing for us to consider. And obviously do as well, Marianne, you raise the point in our earlier conversation, which I feel like Dan's point might be leading us to on safety by design. Could you tell us a little bit more about what you meant by that? So, yeah, that you know, our spaces are designed and inclusive for all and perhaps, you know, it'd be nice to see a future where the data doesn't show what Dan's saying so clearly about, you know, those from more deprived areas, for example, yeah,
Marianne:Definitely. And we just recently in Hamburg did a huge study on gender, and mobility and gender differences. And one of the structural issues actually, is that half the population, women, are actually not really included when it comes to the challenges and concerns that women have in traffic and mobility. You mentioned before, accessibility to stations, if you're using a pram or accompanying children. Men, of course, also do that. But women do 75% of the unpaid care work in the world. So they are the majority of those types of users. But also when it comes to cycling, for instance, research show that women are more averse to risk than men generally in life. And when it comes to cycling, that means women will simply not use a bicycle if it's not safe. And we're kind of smart that way. Because you want to be able to get home safe. And women often also accompany children, we want our children to get home safe. But we see that for instance, in the Netherlands, where Debbie is from Amsterdam, and I'm from Denmark, in Copenhagen, we see that we have a 50/50% of men and women cycling or even more women than men, in some cases, because we have a safe cycling infrastructure in place that makes it possible to and you feel safe using the bicycle. So in the design of our streets, we can design for safety, for instance, for cycling, we can do it for walking as well. And on the streets, we can do it with speed, for instance, making sure that the speed of the car is lower than it is currently.
Brittany:Thank you Marianne, touching more on that point of physical safety for now. And it's making me think about how we had a little chuckle earlier on this call where I had just thought about my own safety if I was in the vehicle or the vehicle and not thought about pedestrians on the street. But beyond things like airbags, which I guess is where the kind of most obvious thing might be that you think of when it comes to safety of transport. What other measures can we take to ensure physical safety of mobility users? Dan, I'm going to start with yourself for that question, please.
Dan:Yeah, I think the future is quite exciting because you talk about something like airbags, which is secondary safety issues, what happens when a crash has already taken place, but we're moving from increasingly from passive safety to active safety. So we're getting systems emerging on vehicles that are preventing the crash from happening in the first place. So autonomous emergency braking, electronic stability, control, speed control measures like intelligent speed adaptation, Lane Keep Assist to prevent the vehicle from wandering out of its lane, all of those things are enormously helpful for helping those who are behind the wheel to ensure that they're not actually involved in a collision in the first place. That with all of the layers of protection that are around them, like seatbelts and airbags and those sorts of things do mean that our vehicle occupants are the safest that they've ever been. And certainly when you look at the official data, we see that car occupant safety is one of the areas where we've seen huge improvement So in recent years, but I think as Marianne was sort of touching on, we do need to think about those who are outside of the vehicle. And there are an awful lot of other transport and mobility goals that we have to get people more active to get them utilizing the open space for them to, to be exercising as they transit across our urban spaces, that's much more sustainable as well, it reduces our carbon footprint, therefore, impacting on climate change. So when we think about those goals, actually, we need to think far beyond just what's happening within the vehicle and think about the safety of the entire transport system.
Brittany:Thanks, Dan. Marianne, what was some of that conversation that we had, which I've just referred to, me chuckling my egocentric self thinking about myself in a car and forgetting about the rest of the people on the planet? Also forgetting that I'm 90% of the time a pedestrian, so it should be those that I'm thinking of. But yeah, what was some of those points that we raised earlier?
Marianne:Yeah. But actually, I think you're, like many other, a product of the very car centric planning that we have been doing in cities since the Second World War, the car has become the focus of attention, even though it is not everybody who drives a car. And so there is this focus on how to serve the car drivers better. And we see right now that there is a change in the way we look at mobility and transport in cities. And actually, simply because we don't have enough space in our cities for all these cars. And they're also getting bigger and bigger, and heavier and heavier. We don't have space. So we and it's very inefficient to actually have cars in cities, because usually, there's just one person in a gigantic car, we simply need to have more people moving through our cities. And we can do that so much better on public transport, and by cycling, and a combination of walking, cycling and public transport. So it is a matter of efficiency. And then it's a matter of safety, that we make sure that the ones as Dan said, who are not in a car are safe. And then it's also a matter of equity and equality and making sure that it's not just if you can afford a car, that you can be safe in your city, the city's public space use, everybody should be able to feel safe in their own city. And we see that children are now basically growing up on the backseat of their parents cars, instead of walking or cycling or moving freely. And we need simply to have more kind of autonomous children on our streets again, instead of more autonomous cars. So I think there is something happening there. Also, because we sit too much. You know, sitting is the new smoking. We need to walk we need to cycle we need to move more sustainably in our cities.
Brittany:Marianne, I think you've just come up with two new book titles. I haven't got to steal them. Certainly autonomous children and smoking is sitting as the new smoking.
Marianne:Yeah, but I actually stole that about autonomous from a feat Professor the Dutch cycling. Yeah, Marco
Brittany:Some of the points you mentioned Marianne, like kind of Brommelstroat. efficiency, equity, sustainability just makes me think about Debbie your role, which I'm going to create a note my own term for career crushing. But as in, I've got a girl crush, I've got a career crush. I feel like working at the CTO innovation office Amsterdam would be very cool. Have you seen any examples of physical safety innovation, that you've been really impressed by really wowed by that we could share with our audience
Debbie:Brilliant innovation, it's actually a new way of thinking about safety. Because as you all heard, during the conversation, its safety is very much related to speed and to a moving vehicle. We actually saw a problem with parked vehicles and people who are in the car stepping out and hitting a pedestrian or any cyclists. So we come up with a - It's a Dutch word. It's actually a small lane, between the cycling path and a parking spot to prevent people getting out of the car hitting the people next to them. So yeah, it's a really small intervention, but it keeps people from hitting each other.
Brittany:Yeah. Which is important. Thanks, Debbie. So we've spoken a lot about I suppose we're thinking about individual level and organization level. Thinking a bit about the broader picture from the UN to city level, we see different targets or goals set related to safety and transport and road injuries, road deaths. What are our thoughts on having targets and goals? Do they work? If they worked? Why do they work? And if not, you know, or when do we see them fail? So Dan, could I invite you to share any of your thoughts on target setting?
Dan:Yeah, sure. So I think the big tech global target at the moment has been set by the UN General Assembly resolution in 2020, calling for a second decade of action on road safety. And for this aim to reduce death and serious injury on the roads around the globe by 50% by the year 2030. So, you know, we've got 10 years to try and turn the tide on what has been just a dramatically increasing toll of road death and injury, particularly in low middle income countries and those that are more rapidly motorizing. I think in terms of your question, though, that the value that targets bring is they create a much more enabling environment when we get political will, political leadership saying, Enough is enough, we've got to do something about this now, then it creates the space into which new policy can emerge into which new event interventions can be developed, into which city administrations and regional administrations feel that they aren't swimming against the tide, they're not swimming upstream, they're actually working, everyone's working more collaboratively towards a goal. And I think there's some research in the in the UK expected out soon from Loughborough University, looking at the value of targets and a performance framework, which were expecting to say quite clearly, that it does make a difference. And I've worked in a couple of different countries, particularly in around the Middle East, where I've gone in after they've established a national strategy with targets. And it's amazing to see how a number of institutions health transportation institutions, education, started to align around those goals. So I think, actually, targets are hugely important. They set that enabling environment that allows us to move forward.
Brittany:Thanks, Dan. I also liked your point on kind of encouraging political will and leadership and what that does. Marianne do you have any further thoughts on that, and perhaps any examples of cities that you see doing a really great job in actually taking action?
Marianne:Yeah, I just want to mention the originally Swedish concept of Vision Zero, that basically, you know, takes it to the next level, instead of having a target for decreasing so and so many percent, you actually say we do not tolerate we do not accept that people are getting injured and killed in our streets. And that is happening across the world and spreading from Sweden now. It's, it's kind of a concept. And we also seeing that cities like Brussels and Paris, are introducing 30 kilometer per hour zones in their entire cities. And it's super effective and very inexpensive tool to decrease accidents, increased traffic safety, and at the same time, reduce air pollution, co2 emissions, and increasing the number of cyclists simply because the streets are safer for people to be in when the vehicles are moving slower.
Brittany:Thank you, Marianne. How about yourself, Debbie? Any examples coming from Amsterdam there?
Debbie:Yes, our government decided to reduce the speed from 50 to 30, as well by 2023. So next year, and according to the first evaluation of Brussel, it's the amount of accidents is reduced by 20%. So yeah, it's it's good policy to adopt. We also moved a mopeds, it was two years ago, from a bicycle lane to the car lane. And we saw huge decline in accidents, as well. So yeah, thinking for reinventing your city, it's a great advice to all cities. Because when you think differently about the way you design your city, and also where you place your vehicles, it can really help you create a safer city.
Brittany:I love that, Debbie, and thank you, it's nice that you've started speaking about reinventing our cities, because the next thing I wanted to take us on to talk about was safety and micromobility. So with the emergence of micromobility, whether it has yet been legalized or not in our cities, you know, what impact is there for micromobility users when they're riding things like E scooters on infrastructure that was originally designed for larger vehicles? So how do we ensure micro mobility users are safe on the existing infrastructure that we've got? Marianne if you've got any thoughts on this?
Marianne:Yeah, and actually, again, you say that streets that were originally designed for cars, I do have to say the bicycles were there first at first whether horse carriages, then came the bicycles, then came the cars and drove out the bicycles. But in the Netherlands and Denmark, where Debbie and I are from, we also have a huge share of bicycle users, not because we have special Danish Dutch genes, but simply because our cities are designed for it, there is space for cycling. And that means for instance, in Denmark where E scooters are allowed, they have to use the cycling infrastructure. But that, of course also means that there are more users in these lanes. But it does mean that when you create this infrastructure, it automatically is more safe. But what we do see in Denmark in the research so far, is that it's seven times more dangerous to ride a new scooter than a bicycle. And that's because of everything from the design of the vehicle to different acceleration and all that. But of course there is, it's also a new vehicle, and people, unlike the bicycle, are not to the same extent used or trained or skilled to using it.
Brittany:That's a really interesting insight that I would have never guessed that escooters were kind of that much more prone to - you're much more prone to accident using those in a bicycle at the moment. Debbie, what impacts are you seeing on the fast innovation of micro mobility like E scooters or like anything else making on safety in general?
Debbie:Because Amsterdam is such a bicycle city, we see them sometimes as a threat, because they are only allowed on bicycle lanes. So people really have to get used to a speed bike instead of a normal bike. But we also have a car scarcity policy. So our city government said that we want to reduce the amount of parking spots and therefore also the amount of cars in our city. So we have to come up with an alternative. So we don't want to avoid these new kinds of micro mobility movements. But we need to keep to fit them into our current traffic and our current roads. So we do a lot of experiments with new technologies such as intelligent speed adaptation, I think Dan mentioned it already. There's a Dutch ebike manufacturer based in Amsterdam, it's called VanMoof. And we're going to be talking to them about setting a certain speed when they're already in a busy city center. And make sure they can have higher speeds when they are more in the outskirts to make sure that people don't use the car when you have to travel outside the city. But they can use their ebike, but only at a high speed when they're outside the city center. And there's a lot of techniques we can use to make sure that all the different speeds in our streets are traveling they're safe together.
Brittany:And Dan, what is the data telling us from Micromobility users? And who is or perhaps isn't listening to it?
Dan:Yeah, no, I think that's a really important point. What we've just heard from Marianne is that there has been some research into the safety of E scooters. And because of the geometry of the vehicle itself. It's actually substantially more dangerous a mode of transport than a cycle than a pedal cycle. And I think there's at the moment, there's a lot of excitement about the way in which micro mobility can revolutionize things we how do we bring these innovations on stream. But I think certainly in the UK context where I'm most familiar, we have been slow to develop a policy landscape and to develop the research and evaluation that understands the impact of these things. And we end up then creating space and creating the legislative landscape that facilitates them and fails to recognize some of the possible detrimental impact. So actually, you end up moving people who would otherwise make walking journeys on to E scooters, then they're less active. Actually, they're consuming a deeper array of resources for doing so. But I think particularly in answer to your question, the concern is that we end up moving forward with legislation and policy to integrate some of these new forms of transport. So in the UK, we've just had a Queen's speech laying out the agenda for government legislation, and it intimated that we are going to see policy around e scooters. But actually the evidence base in the UK is pretty poor. We've done some work through the parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, talking with surgeons and consultants in a&e departments, and they're saying that the number of people visiting emergency departments is through the roof because they're crashing on private e scooters. So we have to have policy that is responsive to the evidence and as we move forward to integrate some of these innovations that we do so in a way that considers safety as an integrated aspect of that
Debbie:Actually the Dutch road authority, they said escooters policy. are not allowed in the Netherlads because they're not safe enough. And it's especially based on the point Marianne made that it's hard to balance. So for example, in our law, when you build a vehicle, it has to have a seat to make sure you can travel safe without falling over. That's why escooter is not allowed. And our city board even said that based on the fact that we think walking and active mobility is such an important, it's very important. And it's also easy to walk because we have a very compact city, we don't want to encourage people to use escooter. So I have to agree with your points is very important that we as a government or we as a city governments stare decisions on what vehicle is used to make sure that people are feel more safe or are more safe or use active mode of transport.
Marianne:But also if you do choose to have E scooters, make sure you design again so that it is safe to use them. And for instance, there's some discussion going on now that we have both regular bicycles, e bikes, scooters, different types of vehicles, that should we keep, for instance, like in Denmark, we have pedestrians, then we have bicycle lanes, and then we have car lanes should we instead start looking at speed of vehicles as what divides them or separates them, instead of what type of vehicle it is because it is in the difference in speed where conflict actually occurs. So there may be in the future, a different way of looking at how we just, you know, we have a certain amount of space, and we need to prioritize how we use it and for whom and for what vehicles. And maybe speed will be the new thing that we use as our design principle in future.
Brittany:That sounds like a really sensible deciding factor as well. And if we've allowed cars to drive out bicycles, we want to make sure we don't allow e scooters to drive out pedestrians from Amsterdams beautiful streets. So for our last topic, we've focused a lot so far on injury by accident. And sadly, I do want us to touch a little on more sinister harm reasons why people may be discouraged from traveling, even if something doesn't actually occur. But that, you know, makes them not feel safe. So I want us to think about how we make sure people feel safe in their cities. We already discourage women late at night from traveling alone on public transport, ride hailing apps have come under a lot of criticism. You know, even myself yesterday, I couldn't believe it. I was at Hyde Park bus stop midday, glorious sunny day, and found myself being really verbally assaulted at a bus stop while I waited for a bus. And it shocked me that I thought unfortunately, I am used to this happening later on in the evening. But it's lunchtime on a really sunny day and the street is quite busy. And this is still happening at a bus stop. So Marianne I wonder what your thoughts are on how do we really make people feel safe in their cities traveling around because it only takes one incident to occur to put you off of traveling alone or to put you off traveling at a certain time of day. So yeah, any thoughts that you could share with us on that?
Marianne:Oh, yeah, I have a lot. But it's mainly also because as part of the report we made on gender and smart mobility, what we also studied was women's feeling of safety when when moving around cities. And as you say, walking at night, using public transport or night was one of the key concerns for women when it comes to that feeling of personal safety. And we did focus group interviews with 40 Women in seven capitals around the world, from Scandinavia to Germany, Singapore and India. And despite the differences in those countries, basically all women share exactly the same stories and strategies for how they travel. It is you know about wearing bigger jackets, walking with keys in between the fingers, pretending to make phone calls, or actually make phone calls to speak to somebody that it really defines the route they take the mode they use or whether or not they actually take a trip, or do a trip. And this is so overlooked in our So true that women don't tend to speak about it, because it's planning and in our design of our cities. Because women simply don't talk to each other about it. These women said this was actually the first time they discussed these issues. It's not like we sit around and talk to each other about what strategies we have. It just happens and it's absolutely really sad and terrible that it is that way. So designing safety and feeling of security into the streets by design is possible from everything to making sure that the facades at ground level are not just a brick wall or concrete, that it has windows. So we have eyes in and out that stations and bus stops, have good lighting and good facilities, that we make sure that there are people around. But it's also a balance of too many people and too little people. But we really think about this in planning and from the beginning of a project or a policy, not as a camera added later, when it's already done. And it is important that also the sector because it is transport and mobility is a male dominated sector. And it means that unfortunately, there's this unconscious bias in the planning, that it means that these issues are not coming up, because many of the people involved don't have these experiences. So there is a lot we can do and it feels like it's now actually also based on what happened in London and the whole text me when you get home hashtag after that terrible incident in London, there now is a discussion about this, we can now talk about this. So this is very important, I think and again, women make up half the population. Of course, the men also that have these fears. So of course, if we take it into consideration, we actually makes it safe and secure for large group of people. become such a norm that you don't even think to mention it. That's just how you get home. Marianne started talking about unconscious bias. Dan, I know that something that we've spoken a few times with you on and feels like something you're quite passionate about. So anything else that you wanted to add on to that point on bias?
Dan:Yeah, well, I just wanted to pick up on the last thing that Marianne said, which was about you know, what works for women actually can be very good for the men in the population as well. And, and thinking about where we get co benefits that work right across the population. We touched a little bit on it earlier, which is if you reduce speeds in urban areas, you get a massive improvement in safety. Debbie talked about the data coming out of Belgium. But actually what that can do then for inclusivity. Because actually slower traffic is easier for children to navigate so that they can find their way around urban spaces, and they can transit more safely. Who works better for older road users, older drivers who have a problem with a looming, so when vehicles are approaching and then assessing the speed at which they're, they're approaching, approaching because of their changes in their eyesight. It's important for cyclists who actually a slower speeds really do help people to feel that they can have confidence to get out on the road as cyclists. So I think there are some things that we can do that really will help our inclusivity. And they are, they are things that don't have to penalize one part of the population in order to provide advantage to another. And speed would be one of those first areas that I would look at, how do we slow down our city spaces. And there are some great examples where you're actually slowing speeds down improve dwell time for local economies, it means that you actually get better economic outcomes. In our high streets, you get more social interaction in communities. So you deal with some of the social community severance issues that transport often brings to communities, there's a lot more that we can do to think about a more inclusive way of doing transport design.
Brittany:I think you've given us such a lovely point to close on, Dan. So thank you so much. I've just jotted down to myself, co benefits and about considering the needs of those that are currently overlooked could really benefit all like, what more do we need to all get behind that it works for everyone. And just to slow down. That felt like the main lesson for everything today. Just slow down, slow down on transport, on planning on that, you know, just just consider everyone be more considerate, be more mindful. And I think most of us did a good job in learning about slowing down in general, thanks to the pandemic. And maybe we've gotten a little bit excited about being reintroduced to the world, and everybody needs to come down to that slow down pace again. So yeah, massive. Thank you Debbie, Marianne, Dan, for your time today. And Mihaela, who we have from Y-Mobility who's producing the session so big thank you to our listeners. Also, to our guests. If our listeners would like to get in touch where can they best reach you? Debbie, I'm going to start with you please.
Debbie:You can find me on LinkedIn. Or send a email to smart mobility@amsterdam.nl
Brittany:Debbie and yourself Marianne.
Marianne:Yes, I'm Marianne Weinreich on LinkedIn, @mobimaw on Twitter, and mwein@humble.dk.
Brittany:Thank you so much. And last but not least, Dan.
Dan:Yeah, quite easy to find on LinkedIn. Just search for Dan Campsall. I'm @campsalls with an S on the end on Twitter, or you can message me dan.campsall@agilysis.co.uk
Brittany:Great. And finally, a big thank you to our sponsor EIT Urban Mobility for making today's podcast possible. So yeah, thanks for listening and we hope to see you again.