The gender data gap in e-micromobility research: A systematic review of gender reporting

Abstract

Our transportation systems have encountered male bias in their design and evaluation for many years due to a lack of data from female users. Despite being a relatively new mode of transportation, e-micromobility has had greater uptake by male users from its inception. Yet, the gendered analysis and reporting of e-micromobility has not been analysed in detail on a large scale. This review identified 292 papers across 37 different countries that have conducted participant-based research into e-micromobility, to understand how gender was reported and analysed in the samples used in the studies. This identified that half of all papers reviewed had a male majority sample, while only 15 % had an equal split of male and female participants. 45 % of the studies (n = 133) reported gender differences, suggesting that gender does impact on e-micromobility use, with considerably more data on male users compared to female users. There was also a lack of reporting on non-binary gender data. With the application of gender factors that have been previously established in the transport domain, this review paper also identifies gender data gaps in areas such as care related journeys, encumbered travel and ergonomic design. The importance in accounting for the role of gender in the development of policy targeting e-micromobility is also presented from the findings of the review. The paper calls for more careful consideration of gender in the design and reporting of e-micromobility studies and presents recommendation that are applicable to a broad range of stakeholders in the e-micromobility domain.