It can often be the case that academic researchers, either by accident or design, study something they’ve had personal involvement in, where the topic of interest intersects with the individual.

Dr Rumana Sarker, a research fellow at Monash University’s Public Transport Research Group and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has led new research into personal safety for women on public transport. 

“This whole idea came from my own experience,” she says.

Dr Sarker came to Monash in 2022 from The University of Innsbruck in Austria, where, she says, public transport felt much safer than in Melbourne, for women specifically. Her PhD in Innsbruck focused on behavioural theories and public transit use.

Two things happened that might be familiar to Melbourne public transport users. 

First, she was assaulted at a tram stop. A drunk man tried to push her into the road and oncoming traffic. “I just ran from that and didn’t wait for the tram anymore. I just ran,” she says.

The second was a police incident at a busy Melbourne train station in the southeastern suburbs. A man was brandishing a knife, “showing it to other passengers”, she says. 

After the first incident, she thought it was a coincidence. However,  when the second occurred, she realised it wasn’t.

“I'm a frequent public transport user, and I used to come to Monash every day by public transport. It made me reflect that while many people may experience such incidents, women are likely to face them more frequently and at a different scale.”

She had also witnessed harassment towards other women, and forms of intimidation from men, such as staring. She asked herself a series of questions: “How did that girl being stared at feel? Maybe she has no choice but to get the same tram the next day?”

What the research revealed

The new research surveyed more than 500 women who use public transport in Melbourne. 

It found harassment experiences during adolescence have a lasting impact on how women perceive safety as adults. It found verbal (more common) and physical harassment shifts women’s perceptions of safety and makes them take precautions such as route planning, avoiding travel after dark, or changing travel methods.

The findings and specific Melbourne context are published in Transportation Research Part F, a journal supported by the International Association of Applied Psychology. The research itself was funded by the Monash Advancing Women’s Success Grant and was supported by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning. Co-authors are Professor Graham Currie of Monash’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Dr Subeh Chowdhury of the University of Auckland.

Read more: Shifting the focus on CCTV and women’s safety

Since work began on the research, the Victorian government has announced free travel for under-18s with a Youth myki, making public transport a far cheaper option for many families. 

Dr Sarker reflects on her own daughter, who is eight, and asks: Can the public transport infrastructure and culture in Melbourne truly be safe for girls and women?

As the research continued, Dr Sarker kept taking public transport to work, but with the added sense of security that came from travelling with colleagues on the same route. Eventually, she stopped it altogether and began driving instead.

“I could see that I really didn’t  feel safe at night,” she tells Lens.  “I don't use public transport now as much as I used to.”

How harassment changes the way women travel

The research shows this plainly. Half of the 528 women surveyed self-reported that they faced “frequent intimidation” both in adolescence and in the past 12 months. The harassment is deemed as offensive behaviour or intimidation rather than physical assaults. 

Almost half (47%) of rail users reported harassment influenced their travel behaviour; of these, 68% travelled less than before.

The research found verbal harassment is linked to heightened daily anxiety despite low threat.  

Harassment in adolescence lowers perceptions of safety and rail use in adulthood, and women from culturally-diverse backgrounds, frequent tram users and those travelling at night felt the most unsafe.

Why safety isn’t just infrastructure

“These findings underline the emotional toll of harassment and highlight the importance of trauma-informed safety planning in public transport design and policy,” Dr Sarker says. “Personal safety isn’t just a feeling, it shapes almost every travel decision women make. 

“Efforts to improve safety must go beyond physical infrastructure to include education, reporting systems and community awareness that recognise the lasting impact of harassment.”

Read more: Tracking women’s and girls’ safety with TramLab toolkits

She says the findings show her that access to public transport is “unfair” because the current perceptions of safety means many women feel compelled to take precautionary measures such as arranging alternative transport at night or avoiding travelling at night altogether, which means they can be less mobile in the city they live in.

What needs to happen

The paper posits six ways forward:

Early prevention and education to address harassment experiences during adolescence 

Trauma-informed strategies and targeted support for passengers affected by physical harassment 

Improve after-dark travel conditions, such as enhancing lighting, a real-time emergency app, visibility, and proactive staff presence and intervention at tram stops and rail stations, particularly along routes where women report lower levels of perceived personal safety.

Integrate diverse lived experiences into transport planning.

Move beyond infrastructure-only solutions into behavioural and emotional safety measures.

Support co-design initiatives that involve women riders.

“It happened to me,” says Dr Sarker. “And many other girls and women. “This research is very personal to me. I don't want the operators to lose these very important customers – we genuinely want to use public transport.”