Microtransit as a Gender Equity Tool

Source: MVTA https://www.mvta.com/connect/

A recent trend in transit services can play a useful role in supporting gender equity in mobility. Microtransit is a point-to-point, on-demand transit service that is typically booked through an app or another smart technology. Microtransit is meant to fill a gap in service, where land use patterns are not dense enough to support a fixed transit route. However, microtransit has differences in use along gender lines. Recent MVTA survey data helps to illuminate differences in use.

Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA) is the transit provider for seven southern suburbs in the Twin Cities. The agency operates a microtransit service, called MVTA Connect, which operates in three zones in the MVTA service area. The service vendor for MVTA Connect, Spare Labs, conducted a series of surveys of MVTA Connect riders, providing important findings on microtransit riders in the Twin Cities. Results are broken down by gender, providing an interesting comparison point along gender lines. The results do not include space for non-binary or gender-queer folks, which is a gap in the data. However, findings are still useful in some ways to see differences between respondents who identify as men or women.

Women are more likely to have their trips induced than men, meaning that trips from women are more likely to not be taken if MVTA Connect weren’t available. Microtransit, then, serves as an option for added mobility in suburban areas, especially for women. Women are also far more likely to take a non-car mode if they weren’t taking MVTA Connect. Taxi or ridehail would’ve made up 53.4% of trips and 23.3% would’ve used a fixed route. For men, these numbers are only 32.9% and 10.1%, respectively. Out of trips by men, 31% would’ve been through a private car, while less than 10% of trips by women would have been done via private car. This data shows clear evidence that in a one car household, men are more likely to use that car than women. This finding of disparate car access has been a core part of the history of suburbanization, where men are expected to drive to the city for work and women are expected to stay home and be tasked with home-making work.

Adding evidence to the gendered disparities of home labor, the survey of MVTA Connect riders found that women were less likely to use Connect for work purposes than men. Over 71% of trips by men were for work purposes, while that number is just over 65% for women. Instead, women were far more likely to use Connect for shopping purposes, with nearly 17% of surveyed trips being used for shopping. This data shows that women do use Connect for work, but there are also a wider range of purposes for women traveling due to the gendered distribution of household labor. 

Finally, women were more likely to cite safety as a reason for switching to MVTA Connect than men. Almost 20% of women cited safety as a primary reason for switching modes while less than 10% of men cited safety. This disparity shows evidence for problems of safety for women in transportation. Women were also more likely to have taken a fixed-route bus than men. With transit safety being a major issue in transportation, particularly in the Twin Cities, safety being a reason for switching to MVTA Connect is an anticipated result.

MVTA Connect survey data shows evidence for many issues of gender and transportation. Suburbanization was built around a man’s work day and commute, and those issues of unequal mobility still play out today. Access to cars has historically been crucial to living in suburban areas, and still is the most common mode in suburban settings. However, for zero or one car households in suburban areas, services like microtransit provide a lifeline service for mobility access where other transit services may not be feasible to operate. 

Microtransit can help women feel safer riding transit. First, the service is on a small bus and typically only has a few riders at a time, which reduces risk of an incident on-board the vehicle. Second, the point-to-point nature of the service eliminates the walk to or from a bus stop and the waiting for a bus, which are often places with less bystanders and natural surveillance. The atmosphere is thus more controlled throughout the trip experience, contributing to women’s perception of safety on microtransit. 

Microtransit continues to be built out in the Twin Cities, with Metro Micro expected to expand significantly in future years. The zones for Metro Micro are based on connecting to frequent routes and transitways to provide a first-mile last-mile service from a station. Although this is a logical way to plan service, general growth of the service in outlying suburbs would be supportive of women’s mobility in suburban areas. Microtransit should not just be looked at as a connector to other services, but also as a gender equity tool for access to local and regional destinations.

NOTE: The author of this article is an MVTA staff member. Data for the survey results is not online and thus lacks proper citation.