Bus and rail providers marked International Women’s Day this week with new research, podcasts, films and operation of an all-female bus route

 
Stagecoach ran an all-female driver bus route in Ayrshire to mark International Women’s Day

 
The passenger transport sector celebrated its female talent this week in aid of International Women’s Day on March 8.

The global theme for 2022 was ‘break the bias’ and the occasion was marked in different ways.

London North Eastern Railway released research that exposes the continuing bias experienced by women working to develop and progress their careers.

The specially-commissioned research, conducted by YouGov in February 2022, revealed the bias experienced by women in different sectors throughout their careers. Key findings include:

  • A third (33%) of working women surveyed believe that gender bias exists in their workplace, with the worst industries being IT and telecoms (46%), construction (45%) and financial services (43%).
  • 75% of women surveyed who have been mistaken for someone more junior at work in the past two years believe that their gender played a role in this error.

  • Almost half (48%) feel that, in their workplace, having children hinders progression opportunities.
  • Three out of five (57%) of women who have been overlooked for promotion in the past 24 months said their gender played a role in why they were overlooked.

As well as encouraging more business leaders to review bias in their organisations, LNER is a leader for gender diversity in the transport industry with a 42% female workforce, compared to the industry average of 16%.

Women@Stagecoach, one of a variety of employee networks set up by Stagecoach last year, released its first podcast for International Women’s Day. It provided an opportunity for leaders of the network to discuss ‘breaking the bias’.

Meanwhile, in West Scotland, for the first time, the team ran an all-female driver bus route, Service 3 between Onthank and Shortlees in Kilmarnock, on March 8 to promote career opportunities for females within the bus industry.

Stagecoach is celebrating an 18% increase in female driver applications compared to last year.

The new employee networks are a key part of Stagecoach’s overall objective set out in its recently launched sustainability strategy, which has an objective of achieving 40% of females in leadership roles by 2024.

International Women’s Day continues to be an important platform for starting these conversations and with this year’s theme being ‘break the bias’ it allows men to join the conversation and become advocates, which is equally as important

Stagecoach UK managing director Carla Stockton-Jones said: “International Women’s Day continues to be an important platform for starting these conversations and with this year’s theme being ‘break the bias’ it allows men to join the conversation and become advocates, which is equally as important. Our targets for diversity are ambitious but realistic and we are making great progress to meeting them by 2024.”

The Go-Ahead Group released a video of women from across its business discussing why they love working in transport, and the exciting opportunities they have to progress their own careers in bus and rail.

Among apprentices at Go-Ahead’s rail division, 37% are women, along with 17% of apprentices at Go-Ahead bus companies – a rate considerably higher than average. 30% of this year’s group graduate intake are women. Govia Thameslink Railway doubled the number of female train driver applications from 413 in 2019 to 825 in 2020. 40% of train drivers they recruited in 2021 were women.

Go-Ahead’s initiatives to attract more women to work across the group include the creation of a ‘Women in Bus’ network, offering mentoring and support for female bus workers. Go-Ahead has a target of increasing the overall proportion of women in bus from 11% to 20% by 2025. Scott Maynard, group HR director, said: “For too long, women have been under-represented in the transport industry … we’re working hard to recruit more women but we know that we need to do more, and to go further.”

We know that more diverse and gender-balanced teams are more engaged, collaborative, motivated and safer

Great Western Railway, Network Rail and the British Transport Police teamed up to celebrate women in the rail industry, with a host of activities across the Great Western Network, including a new film featuring the breadth and variety of roles carried out by women on the railway.

Co-chair of Inspire, Network Rail’s gender equality network, Joanna Grew said: “We know that more diverse and gender-balanced teams are more engaged, collaborative, motivated and safer. By promoting positive female role models, we hope to provide inspiration and encouragement for future generations who may like to follow in the footsteps of some of our female railway pioneers.”

 
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