September 2026 Newsletter
Dear Women in Mobility UK Community,
How do we embed equity for women in transport policy? Not by considering transport as a separate entity from the built environment and other infrastructure. Safe, convenient, available transport for women cannot exist separately from the rest of the public realm. If the path to the bus stop is unsafe or inaccessible, then the bus service is too, no matter how frequent, cheap or safe.
We at Women in Mobility are pleased to work with Landor Links to produce the Planning for Women and Girls conference in Bradford on 4 November. The theme for the event is Safe for her, safe for all? and the focus is on how transport and the built environment should be considered as one when creating locations where women and girls can move safely and feel safe.
There are five key subjects forming the conference programme:
These are challenging subjects and it is clear that our conference will tackle sensitive topics and lead to serious debate. There are many surveys on the matter, each framed a little differently, but generally about half of women and girls report feeling unsafe on our transport network, and a third have experienced harassment or physical attack. This represents millions of individual bad experiences. It also translates into millions of journeys not taken, opportunities missed, economic activity which never happened, and social contacts not made.
Our transport networks have been designed by men for at least a couple of millennia. We know the names of some Roman road engineers and it is a safe assumption there were no women among them. Join us on 4 November in Bradford to explore what needs to change, so that our current networks can be adapted, and future ones designed, to meet the needs of women and girls.
In this Newsletter, read about Gender Budgeting, Blue Plaques for pioneering bus sector women, how women’s journeys differ from those of men, and more.
As ever, this is your community. If there is something you would like to see, a story to spotlight, or a milestone to celebrate, reach out to our team on LinkedIn. Sandra, Olga, Elaine and Jennie are delighted to be joined by Sydney who will support our mission as a volunteer Digital Coordinator. We would love to hear from you.
Warm wishes, The WiM UK team  The Conference Participation & Speaking Opportunities Survey
Women in Mobility UK is seeking to better understand women's experiences participating in industry conferences, panels, webinars, and events. We want to understand how women experience speaking at industry events, including what works well and what gets in the way.
The survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Your responses will be treated confidentially and aggregated for analysis. The insights gained will inform future initiatives, research, and activities that support greater inclusion in the mobility sector. So please take the time to fill it in and to share it with your colleagues and peers. Follow the link below to begin. Women in Mobility Visit to TRL Living Lab Join us for a visit to the TRL Living Lab in Woolwich, south-east London, 10.00 - 12.00 on 8 October 2026. All are welcome but pre- booking is essential. The TRL Living Lab, formerly known as SMLL, is a real-world connected urban testbed in London where innovative technologies for safer, cleaner, smarter, and more accessible transport can be developed and evaluated. During the visit, guests will learn how TRL uses its control room, monitoring infrastructure, workshop facilities, and 24 km test route to support research, demonstrations, and trials of future mobility solutions. TRL Living Lab Visit Registration Mobility Insights Spotlight
1. Gender Budgeting Gender budgeting is the evaluation of public expenditure through a gender lens. It specifically does not mean allocating funding via separate budgets for male and female citizens. It is an interesting and potentially valuable analytical tool. Read more about it here Gender budgeting | European Institute for Gender Equality In February 2026, the London Assembly Transport Committee and the UK Women's Budget Group (WBG) released a report on transport accessibility, advocating for a pioneering gender budgeting pilot to address the unique travel patterns and needs of women and unpaid carers across London. You can read this Accessibility & Inclusion in Transport Planning report here Accessibility and Inclusion in Transport Planning. The Women’s Budget Group contributed evidence to the report detailing how access to public transport is crucial for women to meet their needs in relation to employment, caring responsibilities, and health care. London is estimated to contain around half a million of unpaid carers, nearly all of them women. The resulting report asks for Transport for London to adopt a gender-sensitive approach to financial and policy planning.
2. Blue plaques for Women in Bus and Coach We do not know the names of any female transport engineers working in the Roman Empire and it is probably safe to assume that there weren’t any. But thanks to the Women in Bus and Coach organisation, women pioneers in the bus and coach sector are being highlighted with blue plaques, six so far.
The latest is Luise Cheeseman, Director of Buses at Transport for London and the founder of WiBaC. One of the other ground-breaking women is Helen Clifford, the first bus mechanic in London and probably the UK. You can check out these exceptional women here The Blue Plaque Initiative - Women in Bus and Coach
3. Women’s travel patterns and trip chaining This input into a House of Commons Transport Committee call for submissions on Strategic Transport Objectives from 2023 has a wealth of useful information committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/123142/html/ The authors, Dr Rosalind Shorrocks (University of Manchester) and Dr Anna Sanders (University of York) draw on their research from Greater Manchester to make recommendations for transport systems which will most benefit women:
They find that women trip-chain more, and do so more locally, than men, and that transport policy to benefit women needs to reflect this.
Events Spotlight Events in the UK and abroad over the coming months that may be of interest.
Mobility Camp 2026 – Sheffield, 30 September 2026 Mobility Camp is the annual volunteer-run transport unconference. It brings together transport planners, modellers, engineers, technologists, social activists, academics and others interested in discussing and coming up with solutions to ongoing challenges in the transport sector. It is cheap to attend (free to young professionals) and interactive. Everybody’s voice is heard and everybody’s input valued.
Highways UK 2026 – NEC Birmingham, 14–15 October 2026 The road infrastructure, transport and mobility supply chain gathers for a multi-track conference alongside the exhibition floor, covering strategic investment, local delivery, digital twins and sustainability. https://www.hauc-uk.org.uk/events/highways-uk-2026
Euro Bus Expo – NEC Birmingham, 3-5 November 2026 Do you work in the bus and coach sector? If so, a day out at this free event is well worth it. See the newest vehicle designs, learn about new technology supporting fleet operation and passenger services, and make new contacts. This is the largest bus & coach event in the UK. Euro Bus Expo 2026, Bus & Coach Exhibition, NEC Birmingham Planning for Women and Girls - Bradford Arts Centre, 4th November 2026 Keynotes, case studies, workshops and panels across five connected themes. What works for women and girls tends to be safer for everybody, so the day joins design, safety, inclusion, culture and power into a single route towards change. It builds on the Gender on the Agenda series and features the WYCA Safer Parks project. https://www.landorlinks.uk/pfwg
ITS UK Annual Awards - Sheraton Grand, Park Lane, 10th November 2026 Marking its 20th year, it covers 13 categories across connected/autonomous mobility, data, innovation, sustainability and leadership, with individual and project categories open to all ITS UK members and public sector bodies. The Awards feature the Jennie Martin Award for ITS Woman of the Year, named after Women in Mobility's own Jennie Martin. The Award was created in 2022 to mark Jennie's retirement as Secretary General of ITS United Kingdom and has been handed out every year since. https://www.its-uk.org/event/presidents-dinner-awards-2/
Opportunities Below we share some public and private sector transport and mobility roles currently being advertised in the UK.
Senior Solution Architect – Transport for London (up to £85,000, closes 13 September 2026) Senior Solution Architect Job Details | TfL, GLA or OPDC
Technician, Transport Project Delivery – Glasgow City Council (up to £43,771, closes 6 September 2026) Technician (Transport Project Delivery)(Readvertisement) - GLA15854 | Glasgow | myjobscotland
PhD Candidates – Transport Strategy Centre, Imperial College, London Various opportunities in the fields of Data-centric Engineering, Transit System Performance, Statistical Modelling and Network Performance Analytics, Resilience, Safety, and Risk in Transport Systems, and Causal Inference and Prediction. Funding available. PhD Opportunities | Research groups | Imperial College London
Head of Transport Strategy – York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (York/Northallerton, hybrid; £71,425–£80,216, closes 15 September 2026)
Senior or Principal Consultant, Transport and Development Planning – Steer (London, hybrid) https://apply.workable.com/steer-group/j/472319E0F6/
Recruiting for a role yourself? Send it to us on LinkedIn and we will feature it next month. 📣 Help us grow: share this newsletter
Everything we do at Women in Mobility UK gets stronger with more voices in the community. If just one part of this edition was useful to you, the single best thing you can do is forward it to a colleague or friend who works in, or is curious about, transport and mobility.
Three quick ways to help:
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