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Published on: 06/02/2026 - 18:59

Taking transport sometimes means embarking on an unpleasant journey when you're a woman. Around the world, 70% of public transport users say they have suffered gender-based and sexual violence, heavy stares from those who rub them. Many have developed techniques to protect themselves: avoiding the last metro, pretending to be on the phone, sitting near the drivers, choosing loose clothing and flat shoes... Transporters are also tackling the problem, explains Laure Manent's guest, Virginie Perrey, security director of the Keolis group, but the solutions sometimes look like band-aids on wooden legs.

Public transport was synonymous with the emancipation of populations, allowing the poorest to move away from their homes, even if they did not own a horse or cart. But today that the system is largely democratized across the planet, a question arises: is traveling a gender issue?

Women, like others, have benefited from this freedom of movement, but for them, the price to pay is heavier than for men. Because this space, like all other public spaces, was not designed for them. Rather, they imposed themselves little by little, nibbling on the public sphere to escape the domestic sphere. And in France, there are still eight acts of violence every day, deplores Xavier Piechaczyk, future CEO of RATP.

An arsenal of measures to preserve security

In October 2025, an attempted rape shocked all of France: in broad daylight, a man attacked a young woman in the RER C. He would have succeeded in raping her without the intervention of Marguerite, another passenger, a school director, trained to manage violence. By questioning him, by filming the event, by interposing between the victim and the attacker, "she managed to break the 'tunnel effect' of this man and make him aware that there were other people around him", explains Virginie Perrey.

For the security director of the Keolis group, breaking this effect is part of the arsenal of measures that public transport users can use to prevent or interrupt an attack. She also cites the "5D" method in which the Women's Foundation trains: distract (talk to the victim as if you knew them, ask the aggressor for the time to distract him from his target), document (film), delegate (hand over to the security forces or someone stronger than you), direct (if possible and without putting yourself in danger, intervene with the victim and make the aggressor leave), dialogue (to reassure the victim).

Virginie Perrey also mentions the pedestrian cameras that transport security patrols are now authorized to wear to film, or the "exploratory walks" of volunteer users who inspect transport lines from end to end to identify places where they feel unsafe, so as to improve the light and urban furniture of an area and make it safer. Applications like Voyage Duo or phone numbers like 3117 in Ile-de-France transport are additional tools. But in this matter, “safety is a co-construction, it is everyone’s business,” explains Virginie Perrey, from the police and gendarmerie to transporters and users, including the government.

Gender segregation, a bad idea?

But for the security director, creating wagons reserved for women is a bad idea: “It’s gathering all the sheep in the same place, with no guarantee that the wolf won’t enter,” she explains. Taxi companies, almost everywhere on the planet, are also exploring the trail of sexual segregation in transport, from Burkina Faso to Lebanon via India. Again, a bandage on a wooden leg? Perhaps, but women benefit from it: in terms of safety for passengers, but also for drivers. In their cars, female drivers can be in danger when they transport men with malicious intent, as numerous scandals have shown in recent years; with this solution, cars driven by women for women, it provides security for both, and an additional economic outlet for those looking for a secure job.

This is the other aspect of public transport: by allowing the movement of people, it has also made it easier for women to access employment, fewer of whom have a driving license or a car compared to men. When they are not banned outright from driving, like in Saudi Arabia where women have only been able to do so since 2018, or in Turkmenistan where there is still a lot to do. Transport allows them to move away from home to work and achieve economic independence. They also allow them to exercise, in this sector precisely, a professional activity.

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