Navigating Delhi: Why Safe and Inclusive Transport Matters

When Shruti first moved to Delhi from Kerala as a student, she was thrilled to find a bus system with a stop close to her accommodation. “My friends were surprised that I used buses even at night… they said it wasn’t safe,” she recalls. At first, she dismissed their concerns. But one late night, exhausted from a long day, she boarded a bus only to realize she was the only woman on board apart from the conductor and three men. “At that moment, I panicked and the gang-rape and murder case of 2012 flashed through my mind. I was terrified and got off the bus at the next stop and took an auto home”.
Shruti’s story is not an anomaly. For women, public transport in Delhi often feels like an ordeal. A study by Safetipin, found that many female students in Delhi have switched from public transport to intermediate public transport modes like auto rickshaws to avoid harassment. A student from Miranda House shared, “I’ve been harassed multiple times on buses. The buses get so crowded, and some men deliberately touch women. My friends and I have cried so many times after getting home.” Despite improvement in infrastructure and awareness campaigns, Delhi consistently records the highest number of crimes against women among India’s metropolitan cities. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data from 2022, three rapes were reported daily in Delhi. Yet, these numbers barely scratch the surface. Harassment, assault, and abuse—normalised in public spaces—remain vastly underreported, especially for working-class women, women from marginalised communities and gender minorities. For example, during a personal interview, a trans person shared, “Asserting my right to the fare-free scheme is met with pushback, and riding the women’s compartment is uncomfortable. I’ve caught men trying to film me, but there’s no one to complain to.”
“The typical response to public safety concerns is a call for increased surveillance and policing – in public spaces and of women themselves.” says Ankita Kapoor, Senior Program Manager at Safetipin. “But ensuring safety goes far beyond installing CCTV cameras. It requires systemic reforms in urban planning and design, governance, and upending the patriarchal mindset that shape how cities like Delhi are designed and managed. Simple strategies such as activating streets—by encouraging vendors around public transport stops—can increase pedestrian activity, thereby enhancing “eyes on the street” and improving the perception of safety.”
A City Built on Fear
During a public consultation on Delhi’s mobility in 2025, Suman from the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) noted, “it is extremely common for drivers to play sexual or uncomfortable songs in mini-buses, especially in peripheral and resettlement areas surrounding Delhi where there are barely any other options for last-mile connectivity such as buses, e-rickshaws or even autos. These songs make women feel very unsafe and embarrassed.” Such micro-aggressions reinforce the notion that public spaces are not for women.
Studies repeatedly show how safety concerns shape women’s lives. Research by Girija Borker showed that female students in Delhi choose colleges based on safety over quality, often sacrificing better opportunities to avoid unsafe commutes. Similarly, a Safetipin study from 2020 found that street harassment contributes to school dropouts among girls in Mewat in Haryana.
In Bawana, a working woman explained how mobility issues multiply after dark. “There are no buses or rickshaws in the evening, and the roads are broken and unpaved. I have to walk back from the factory with other female coworkers. It’s unsafe and exhausting.” Poorly lit streets, unsafe bus stops, and unreliable grievance redressal systems exacerbate the risks for women and gender minorities navigating Delhi’s transport systems. This is compounded by unsympathetic bus drivers and conductors who do not stop for women at night.
Travel decisions made by women in Delhi are shaped by an underlying evaluation of risk and safety and often – as women have lesser access to private household vehicles – by a dependence on the men in their lives, impacting their freedom to move, to experience leisure, to work, to access basic welfare and care systems, and to feel at home.
Worse for the Marginalised
Safety concerns aren’t the only barriers. Delhi’s public transport often actively excludes the most marginalized based on caste and occupation. Women street vendors, for instance, report being denied boarding because conductors don’t allow their goods on board. Similarly, women waste pickers have repeatedly noted how drivers and conductors don’t let them board with their tools, uniforms and sacks that they need for work. This caste-based exclusion is often justified under the pretext of keeping buses clean and ‘pure’.
This exclusion has economic consequences. Research shows that women’s limited mobility restricts their ability to access jobs, education, or welfare services. For working-class women, who often lack access to private vehicles, public transport is supposed to be the lifeline connecting them to the city. Instead, they are pushed further into precarity, forced to rely on expensive alternatives like autos or ride-hailing services—if they can afford them.
The fare-free scheme for women in Delhi’s buses, introduced in 2019, was a step in the right direction, increasing the number of pink tickets (women passengers) from 25% in 2020 to 46% in 2023. Yet, its benefits are unevenly distributed. In peripheral areas, buses are infrequent, drivers refuse to stop for women, and last-mile connectivity remains a major challenge. A 2022 study revealed that low-income women traveling during off-peak hours are often forced to spend more on transport despite earning below a living wage.
The Design Deficit
Delhi’s transport system was not designed with women—or anyone outside the able-bodied male commuter—in mind. Most bus stops lack adequate lighting, nor have clean toilets, nursing stations in close vicinity. Handlebars on buses are often too high for women to reach, and level boarding for strollers, wheelchairs, or elderly passengers is non-existent. Even initiatives like seat reservations for women are poorly enforced.
Representation matters too. Women and trans people remain underrepresented in the transport workforce. Bus drivers, conductors, station staff, and decision-makers are overwhelmingly male, leading to an environment where grievances are dismissed or ignored. Grievance redressal mechanisms are largely ineffective.
The issues go beyond physical design. Members from HLRN shared how in resettlement areas, where families have been relocated from central Delhi to the peripheries due to demolitions, public transport infrastructure is often non-existent and mobility is a luxury. These neglected peripheral neighbourhoods lack reliable transport services, forcing residents to spend time and money commuting to central Delhi for their jobs, schools, and welfare services like ration and healthcare. This disproportionately impacts women, who often shoulder the burden of care work and are left with little time or resources to invest in their own mobility.
Charting a New Course
It is time that Delhi and its public transport is made safe and more functional for women across the city. With the 2025 Delhi Assembly Elections around the corner, YLAC, Safetipin, City Sabha, and Raahgiri Foundation, under the Sustainable Mobility Network, have published the Dilli Charter in consultation with citizen groups working across environment, labour, gender and housing sectors. The charter, which is being presented to all major political parties in Delhi, emphasizes that, in addition to building socio-political will, making transport safe for women and gender diverse persons requires an understanding of their travel patterns. This can be facilitated through the collection and analysis of gender disaggregated data.
Such efforts need to be supplemented by in-depth discussions with everyday public transport users, public consultations, surveys, and the involvement of citizen-based groups to understand diverse perspectives and needs. Given that Delhi’s current fleet of 45 buses per lakh population is far below the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ (MoHUA) recommended benchmark of 60 buses per lakh population, expanding the fleet is an opportunity to introduce gender responsive and disability friendly infrastructure in buses and ensure that service planning accounts for the travel patterns of women.
Through regular audits, gender-disaggregated data collection and public consultations, the charter pushes for end-to-end gender and disability responsive design and policies such as:
- Mandatory halting of buses for women at stops and on-demand at night, enforcement of existing fare-free and seat reservation schemes, street and bus stop lighting, hygienic public toilets with lactation spaces near stations and bus stops, prevention of harassment, and gender sensitisation for transport staff
- Increased representation of women and trans people across workforce levels with specific targets for recruitment, retention, and promotion
- Establishment of a Gender Advisory Committee within UMTA and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for grievance redressal
Furthermore, it stresses the importance of improving safe last-mile connectivity, especially in peripheral and remote resettlement areas, by operationalizing the Mohalla Bus Scheme (2023-24 scheme to deploy shorter nine-metre electric buses to boost last-mile connectivity in areas with roads that have less width or are crowded), deploying buses at a frequency of 10 minutes during peak and non-peak hours, making public transport like metros more affordable, providing real-time information, and improving route efficiency in consultation with civil society and local users.
Delhi’s public transport system is the backbone of the city. But for too many women, it remains a barrier—a daily test of endurance, survival and dignity. Investing in a safe, affordable, and equitable public transport system is essential if Delhi is to become a city that prioritises the well-being of its citizens. The Dilli Charter offers a roadmap to transform public transport from a site of fear and exclusion into a space of freedom and dignity.
The changes needed are both infrastructural and cultural. Safety in public spaces cannot be achieved without dismantling the caste-based patriarchal systems that perpetuate inequality. Ensuring mobility for all is not merely a question of infrastructure; it is a question of justice.
As Delhi heads into another election cycle, political parties have an opportunity to prioritise inclusive urban mobility. It’s time to make public transport work for everyone—not just the able-bodied man in the middle seat, for whom the system is already built.
[Rithvika Rajiv is a Senior Program Associate at Safetipin. Her work examines the intersection of gender and mobility, with a focus on creating inclusive, safe, accessible and affordable public transport systems.
Anjali is a Programs Associate at YLAC. Their work is rooted in an anti-caste understanding of urban and ecological justice, with a focus on housing and land rights. ]
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