General objective: 

The general objective of the activities of the transport working group will be to examine the global experiences in the planning and management of transport systems and their particular impacts on the poor.  Lack of security will also be examined with respect to the location of the urban poor vis-a-vis other urban services, and employment and in terms of public transport users including women, children, the elderly and handicapped.

Selected issues:

Women have different travel needs and travel patterns than men. These differences also imply different requirements with respect to choice of mode, transport infrastructure investment patterns and safety and security, not only in public transport vehicles but just walking within communities and interacting with the rest of the city.

Massive highway-based infrastructure has bifurcated entire neighborhoods and shattered the cohesiveness of many neighborhoods leading to isolation of certain sub-populations and a feeling of insecurity and “fortress-mentality” among urban populations. Hence, whether real or perceived, feeling of insecurity have increased due to the root cause of transport investment patterns. 

Transport infrastructure expansion has forced massive relocation of urban squatters and other low-income populations to the periphery, wrenching populations away from normal employment locations and requiring ever-increasing percentages of income to be spent on already deteriorating and unsafe public transport in order for the poor to “access the city”.

The poor are also “transport poor.”  They are either public-transport captives or rely exclusively on non-motorized transport (either bicycles or more likely, their own feet).  Thus, they are caught in a double- jeopardy where they are hurt twice: once, because although in most mega-cities of the developing world, only 10% of the population can afford access to a private motor vehicle, over 90% of transport expenditures go to service cars; secondly, as public transport and non-motorized transport captives, they are more likely to be killed by over-speeding private vehicles or on the overcrowded roads they must walk on or on the overcrowded buses they must ride on.

Selected outputs:

Development of a Working Group Action Plan to include the following:

Identify and prioritize specialized issue papers to highlight and discuss the relevant issues and opportunities surrounding transport, poverty alleviation  and safety and security.

Identify and prioritize tools and techniques which should be developed to better integrate poverty, gender and safety considerations into conventional transport planning analysis and management.

Identify two or three problematic case studies of transport infrastructure expansion causing relocation in each region of the world and identify strategies to document the cases and identify stakeholders to explore strategies to resolve the situation.

Identify strategic points of collaboration with existing regional fora of the IFUP to ensure Transport and security is included on their agenda.  Identify, together with representatives of these fora groups who can develop capacity for regional advocacy on the issues of transport, safety and security.