Problem Identification
In urban areas of the Global South, transportation has become increasingly essential for women. Yet, navigating these routes is fraught with challenges. From the rising costs of ride-hailing apps like Uber due to inflation to the threats of harassment on buses and rickshaws, safe and affordable options are limited. In regions like Pakistan, the situation is compounded by poor road conditions, inadequate street lighting, and high crime rates. As a result, many women are trapped in a cycle of fear, unable to confidently commute to their destinations.
❓ Problem: How might we assist doctors who aren’t tech-savvy in improving their response times?
Desk Research
My literature review focused on the gender disparities in urban mobility in developing nations. In this review, I identified the main challenges women encounter both inside and outside vehicles while traveling.
🚘 Gender Disparities in Urban Mobility
- Travel Patterns: Women have unique travel patterns, making more trips and relying more on public transport than men. Despite this, transport infrastructures don’t cater to their specific needs, with societal attitudes further limiting their mobility.
- Smart Mobility: Smart mobility apps were meant to aid disadvantaged groups like women but often sideline their needs, resulting in safety concerns. Limited tech literacy or phone access greatly hinders women’s use of these apps.
- Social Attitudes: Societal norms, such as the expectation for married women not to travel without their husbands, are just one of many barriers limiting women’s mobility. Deep-rooted beliefs about honor further restrict their independence and opportunities.
🚩 Issues Faced by Women During Travel
- Outside Vehicles: Women grapple with long, unpredictable wait times at bus stops, inadequate lighting on routes to these stops, the necessity to traverse longer distances due to limited routes, and frequent encounters with harassment while waiting.
- Public Transport: The tightly-packed public transport often exposes them to harassment, with unwanted contact, lewd gestures, and catcalls from men. These experiences deter women from public transport, affecting their educational and career decisions as they prioritize safety.
- Personal Vehicles: Male drivers often show less respect to female drivers on the road. Additionally, traffic inspectors and mechanics may attempt to overcharge women, capitalizing on perceived vulnerabilities.
User Research
- Target Audience: Undergraduate students who would commute daily. We also included male participants in our study for a comparative analysis.
- Study Design: Our mixed-methods approach included a quantitative survey (with 84 respondents) to collect statistical travel data from our audience. This was followed by semi-structured interviews with 11 participants (3 M, 8 F) to gain deeper insights into the pain points, needs, and desires of our audience regarding commute options.
Study Questions
🔍 These questions encompass the primary objectives of our study:
- What factors influence women’s decisions when selecting a mode of transportation for their daily commute?
- In what ways do existing transportation options fail to meet the specific needs of female commuters?
- What types of support systems are female commuters seeking within the transport infrastructure to feel safe?
- How do the commuting patterns of female commuters differ from those of their male counterparts?
Insights
Quantitative
We can see from our data that women are disproportionately affected by harassment during their travels, with 16% of female commuters who utilize public transport having faced at least one instance of harassment.
However, it should be noted that the most commonly faced issues across both genders and all travel modes are related to the affordability of traveling. This helped us understand that one of the most important pain points for our target audience was the rising travel costs due to Pakistan’s worsening economy
Qualitative
Information Synthesis
I synthesized the insights from our user research to create qualitative personas to stay anchored on user needs.
Persona
Name: Amna
Age: 21 years
Education: BS-Econ from the Lahore School of Economics
Occupation: Student
Location: Lahore, Pakistan
Goal:
To find a safe, reliable, and affordable commuting option.
Quote:
“As a day scholar, I am constantly stressed because of the commute. I don’t have any affordable or reliable options for travel, so I can’t stay back for any university events later in the day. Whenever I go on public transport, I stay on call with my mother so she knows immediately if something goes wrong.”
Story:
Amna is a junior-year student who is majoring in Economics. She does not have a personal vehicle and thus has to rely on public transport for her daily commute. She would prefer ride-hailing applications, but they are too expensive for her daily travels. Her plight with her daily commute is a cause of stress for her entire family.
Frustrations
- Feels that her stressful commute is greatly affecting her academic life.
- Feels betrayed by her society and government who have not been able to meet her basic travel needs.
Need:
Any transport option that can offer any improvements in terms of safety, reliability, or affordability over her current commute.
Ideation
Our ideation sessions focused on improving current options regarding three core tenets: safety, reliability, and affordability.
We used the rapid ideation brainstorming technique, where the group sat together to list down any and all ideas that came to mind in the next 10 minutes.
Next, we reviewed each idea and discussed its merits while exploring the feasibility through further desk research.
We identified five promising intervention strategies and evaluated their potential to improve women’s urban mobility in Pakistan, emphasizing cost-efficiency and their ability to address the multi-faceted challenges within the transport infrastructure:
- Women-Friendly Bus Stops 🚎
- Wearable Self-Defense Gadget 🥊
- Lahore Canal Water Bus 🚤
- Electric Scooter Renting Service 🛵
- Data-Driven Carpooling 🚘
Women-Friendly Bus Stops
Enhancing public transport to create a safe and affordable commuting option is crucial for women. They often report harassment at bus stops as a significant issue. To address this, we plan to redesign bus stops with enhanced safety measures:
- Continuous surveillance with security cameras at all stops.
- An emergency button to instantly alert the nearest police station.
- A lockable door allows individuals to secure themselves at the stop while awaiting assistance.
Additionally, the stops will feature interactive kiosks displaying nearby bus information and routes, where travelers can conveniently book their rides and child-friendly areas for women who are traveling with infants.
Wearable Self-Defense Gadgets
We designed our highly portable gadget to help women feel safer, confident, and self-reliant.
The wearable we made is a safety ring that can connect users' phones and help them share their GPS location with trusted contacts.
It contains two slide buttons: one to call 911 and the other to activate a security alarm
A small speaker and microphone enable calls to safety and security authorities and the security alarm sound feature.
Lahore Canal Water Bus
The Lahore canal can be utilized as a women-only route by pairing it with a fuel-efficient and secure water bus service. This solution leapfrogs issues faced by women on the road, such as harassment. The boat service will have:
- women-only boat stops with safe and accessible entry and exits.
- safe storage spaces for women to store belongings.
- roomy and comfortable seating.
- tinted windows and an opaque covering for privacy.
This service will also introduce extra job opportunities for women as staff or drivers for the water bus.
Electric Scooter Renting Service
These scooters will be electric powered and have multiple charging stations across the city center. The scooters will be paired with an application that helps users pay their rental charges or book a scooter for the future.
This allows the female population to travel safely, considering that the scooter is one of the easiest motor vehicles to operate, coupled with it being restricted to a maximum speed of 60km/h, hence, overspeeding is not possible. Safety features, including the emergency button, will be available for use, which will inform the nearest concerned authorities about the bike’s location
Data-Driven Carpooling
Our innovative carpooling application is designed to enhance the commuting experience with data-driven insights. The key features and benefits of this approach include:
- Driver/Rider Matching: Users can easily search for and connect with trusted, registered drivers or riders to split travel costs.
- Shared Expenses: The app facilitates transparent communication about ride expectations and divided fuel costs.
- Optimized Routes: The application would suggest safer and fuel-efficient travel routes based on data collected from previous rides.
- Ratings and Reviews: After each trip, users can rate their experience, fostering trust and helping others make informed decisions about their ride-sharing partners.
- Environmental Impact: Encourages carpooling to reduce the number of cars on the road, leading to lower vehicle emissions and a healthier environment.
Outcome
Given the numerous advantages directly aligned with our fundamental design objectives (safety, reliability, and affordability), we chose to proceed with the data-driven carpooling smartphone application approach.
After some brainstorming, we settled on the name Caraamad for our platform, which we hoped would create a welcoming vibe for our platform due to the wordplay.
We conducted a quick survey to collect data about the most important features of Caraamad and finalized the features listed in the following image.
Prototyping
Task Flow
I aimed to make the application as intuitive as possible so that even users with limited digital literacy could utilize the platform.
High-Fidelity Prototype
Our design prioritized safety and reliability. For the theme, we decided to go with pastel hues as our primary tones evoke gentle and soothing feelings. This would make the users comfortable and feel at ease as they interact with the application.
I designed the screens below to provide instant and effortless access to comprehensive information to the user about their drivers, riders, and every aspect of the journey. This approach would ensure that our users are consistently well-informed, enhancing both their security and experience.
You can access the high-fidelity prototype for the women's mobility application below:
Outcome
The Caraamad project has made significant strides since its inception. Together with Dr. Suleman Shahid from Tilburg University, our team showcased a high-fidelity prototype of Caraamad to the Punjab Safe City Authorities (PSCA). Pleased with our presentation, the PSCA integrated our design suggestions into their Women's Safety Application. Furthermore, our initiative garnered financial support from both the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and the World Bank. Since then, our team has been diligently enhancing the User Experience for the Women's Safety Application.
Working on this project was the highlight of my junior year at university. It marked my first foray into formal design education. Immersing myself in User Research, I discovered a passion I intend to follow as my life’s work. I also take pride in knowing that this project made a tangible difference in addressing the critical issue of implementing safe and affordable urban mobility for women in Pakistan, and I hope all my future work can have such outcomes.