Design and layout Paola Ortiz
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BIDtransporte@iadb.orgWe appreciate the collaboration of the authors and the following people for their valuable comments and contributions to this document: Olga Mayoral, Anna Isabel Camilo Alejandro Taddia, Loreto Setien, René Cortés and Andrés Pereyra.This brochure was made for the Transport Week 2015. Distribution and / or sale is prohibited.Copyright © [2016] Inter-American Development Bank. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.
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INTRODUCTIONIn Latin America and the Caribbean over 50% of users of public transportation systems are women. However, not all of our systems are designed with the needs and perspectives of women in mind.Let's start with the challenges that women have as users:A woman gets on a bus to go to work, to run errands, or to accompany someone in her care, but often does not benefit from appropriate fares, routes and schedules. As a result of multiple transfers and/or little or no integration of transport systems, women often end up paying more, wasting time and limiting their physical and labor mobility compared to men.And even when the bus is clean and on time, women are also concerned about their safety, and having street lighting, pedestrian crossings, surveillance systems and respect for their space against theft and harassment.Besides being bus users, women in Latin America and the Caribbean should be able to be the drivers, engineers and managers of our transportation systems and to increase their share in this segment of non-traditional activities. Instead, although women are part of the sector and are qualified, they frequently find themselves in positions related to signposting and cleaning, where the vast majority of time the wages are three times lower than other transportation system jobs.Even more worrying it is that the participation of women in the construction and operation of transport systems does not exceed 15% of the total labor in the sector, even though they represent 50% of the labor force in the region.In the last 10 years, this reality has hardly changed. Given current trends, it will tak...