Inside Intertraffic Podcast 2: Women in Transport

The London hub of the Women in Mobility Group launched in March with the aims of raising the visibility of women in the mobility sector, and attracting women and girls to choose a career in this vibrant industry. We speak to the three co-founders, Sandra Witzel (SkedGo), Olga Anapryenka (Steer) and Annie Reddaway (AppyWay) and discuss the thinking behind the launch, the aims of the newly established network and the innovative methods it's using to attract new members and spread the message - the message being that a career in the mobility sector is something for women to aspire to, but also that it’s vital that young girls are given equal opportunities to explore a life in engineering as their male counterparts.

Continuing the theme of women in transport we spoke with ITS (UK)’s long-serving secretary general Jennie Martin about the changing attitudes towards women in senior positions across what has been, right up until the early part of the 21st Century, a male-dominated industry, and in some countries, very much still is. Jennie talks about her own experiences of overtly sexist behaviour in the workplace and particularly in top-level meetings where men have incorrectly assumed that she was subordinate to her male colleagues.

Paul Hutton also talks to Karla Jakeman, recently appointed as vice chair of ITS (UK). Karla is Connected Transport Innovation Lead at Innovate UK and is encouraged by the increase in the numbers of women present in panel sessions and keynote speaking events, but believes that progress won’t be truly made until “it moves from a situation where having women on the panel is more than a box-ticking exercise” and that women are there because they deserve to be.