From Riders to Leaders: Advancing Women’s Role in the Transport Sector Worldwide

Research by the World Bank, developed with the expertise of researchers from Nikore Associates and the World Bank’s Gender and Policy Lab. Supported by the Government of Japan through the Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) Partnership, offers a structured, actionable roadmap to dismantle persistent gender inequalities in the transport sector. With detailed case studies and a sector-specific results framework, it empowers governments, urban planners, and private sector stakeholders to build a mobility system where women are not only passengers but also leaders, workers, and entrepreneurs.

The central premise is clear: transport is not gender-neutral. Women and men travel differently; women are more likely to rely on public transit, walk, or a “trip chain” for caregiving and household tasks, often during off-peak hours. Yet most transport systems are designed with the male commuter in mind. This oversight has left women facing a range of challenges: unsafe commutes, unaffordable services, poor connectivity, and deeply ingrained social norms that restrict their choices. Moreover, women comprise just 12 percent of the global transport and storage workforce, barely five percent in land transport, and ten percent in the maritime sector. These disparities aren’t just unfair; they are economically inefficient and environmentally unsustainable.

A Framework for Equity and Action

The toolkit introduces a three-pronged framework. It analyzes the broader ecosystem, country-level laws and cultural norms, institutional policies, and individual-level barriers to identify where and how women are left behind in transport systems. The barriers fall into three categories: mobility, employment, and entrepreneurship. Under mobility, it examines challenges around availability, affordability, physical and social accessibility, and safety. For employment, it explores recruitment practices, HR policies, career advancement, and leadership representation. In entrepreneurship it focuses on access to finance, business training, and markets.

Each barrier is explored through real-world examples. In Morocco, the Casablanca Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project introduced woman-friendly services and training for transport staff, leading to a surge in female ridership. In Rio de Janeiro, the Cartão Move Mulher program provided free public transit to survivors of domestic violence, improving access to shelters, police, and health services. In Chennai, India, the Gender and Policy Lab conducted detailed safety audits across the city’s transport nodes, resulting in upgraded infrastructure such as improved lighting, panic buttons, and clearly marked crossings.

Closing the Rural Gender Gap

While urban challenges are significant, rural and peri-urban areas face even starker gender gaps. In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, poor road infrastructure has long kept girls out of school. In response, the World Bank’s rural accessibility project introduced subsidized school transport services that were culturally sensitive and secure. This initiative not only increased girls’ enrollment but also reduced dropout rates during critical transition years.

Public procurement is another powerful tool. In North Macedonia and Uganda, road projects now include hiring clauses requiring contractors to employ local women in road construction and maintenance. These jobs often provide the first formal employment opportunity for rural women and boost household income. The toolkit emphasizes the need for road agencies to collect sex-disaggregated data and for companies to reform workplace infrastructure, introducing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), separate sanitation facilities, and flexible work hours.

Women as Leaders, Not Just Riders

The toolkit underscores that women’s participation must go beyond ridership to leadership. In Serbia, a Structured Engineering Apprenticeship Program achieved gender parity in training future rail engineers. In Egypt and India, transport authorities established childcare centers at depots and transit hubs to retain women employees. Ecuador’s Quito Metro project achieved 40 percent female workforce participation and 50 percent women in management. Through safety reforms and proactive recruitment, it also dramatically reduced reported harassment incidents.

In the maritime and aviation sectors, targeted training and internship programs are slowly opening doors. Ukraine’s “She Trucker” initiative is a bold example of training women to fill truck driver shortages, while in Bangladesh, women-led e-mobility enterprises are gaining traction through partnerships with banks and logistics platforms. These examples highlight the need for sector-specific strategies that address skill development, leadership pipelines, and workplace culture.

Measuring Progress, Not Just Promises

A major strength of the toolkit is its emphasis on monitoring and accountability. It presents a menu of output and outcome indicators tailored to different subsectors. These include metrics such as the share of women employed in technical roles, the number of women accessing subsidized transit, and changes in school attendance or income levels linked to transport interventions. Although not all initiatives meet the World Bank’s evolving “Gender Tag” criteria, the toolkit offers a practical approach to closing gender gaps at scale.

Ultimately, the report is a call to action: to break down structural barriers and unlock the full potential of women as users, workers, and innovators in the transport ecosystem. Rather than lowering standards, the goal is to remove outdated restrictions that prevent women from thriving. The result? A transport sector that is not only more inclusive but also more innovative, efficient, and equitable for all. As cities grow and technologies evolve, this toolkit provides the blueprint to ensure no one is left waiting at the curb.