Safetipin in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank Youth for Asia (ADB YfA), a youth initiative aimed at increasing meaningful youth contribution, and AIESEC Viet Nam, a youth led NGO that develops youth leadership - undertook a pilot project for strengthening sustainable urban transport for Hanoi Metro Line 3. The project primarily engages youth to collect gender sensitive safety audits by using both the Safetipin Applications named ‘My Safetipin’ and ‘Safetipin Nite’.
The country's first metro system consisting of 8 lines to provide connectivity to urban and suburban areas of Hanoi are currently under construction - Line 2A: Cat Linh to Ha Dong and Line 3: Nhon to Hanoi Station - the latter being our project scope. After facing long delays of almost ten years, the elevated section of Line 3 is nearing completion in 2020. Starting the same year, the city wants to slowly phase out bikes and encourage people to use public transport. To enable this paradigm shift, the soon operational metro line is trying to strengthen the last mile connectivity around the stations and focus on safety, accessibility, and mobility for all.
Safetipin was brought in to help assess the quality of the urban areas around each station and to give recommendations for improvement which will specifically benefit women and girls and allow them to use public transport with ease – increased access, last mile connectivity and freedom of movement being the primary objectives for the pilot project.
Parameter Rating - Pin Distribution Graph:
The parameter wise pin distribution graph illustrates the number of points rated as 0, 1, 2 and 3. The good ratings are taken as positive and poor ratings as negative. As shown on the graph, the parameter of Security is rated poorly for most parts of the city, whereas parameters like Walkpath, Lighting and Gender Diversity is mostly good through out the city.
Average Parameter Rating Graph:
The average parameter rating graph illustrates the average rating for each parameter on a scale of three. Each of the nine parameters are rated either 0,1, 2 or 3, where 0 is poor and 3 is good. As seen on the graph, Walkpath parameter has been rated the highest, followed by other parameters such as Lighting and Gender Usage. Openness, Visibility and Transport parameters are rated slightly lower and the parameter Security has been rated the lowest, which probably indicates no or little presence of formal security in public spaces. However, the overall Feeling of Safety or perception of safety for Hanoi is rated Average.
Correlation Graph (Parameter w/t Feeling):
The correlation graph illustrates the correlation drawn between each of the eight parameters with respect to feeling, the ninth parameter. In the case of Hanoi, the manual data collected shows openness, walkpath, security and lighting to be rated the highest when correlated with feeling. This clearly shows the importance of these parameters in contributing to the perception of safety.
Basing on the collected data a safety score of 4.1 on a scale of 5 is given for the entire Hanoi Metro Line 3 (please refer Safetipin methodology on page 00). The percentage distribution on this scale shows 84% of the overall rating based on all the nine parameters, to be good. The rest is distributed from above average to poor, where 6% is above average and the remaining 10% is further divided between average, below average, poor.
The following parameter maps illustrate the pin location and rating received by each pin for each parameter. When viewed together it shows predominantly how areas fair based on the ratings. For example, if the safety score map on the left is viewed at a glance, it shows how areas from the extended or outer city fairs poorly in terms of safety score (more red, orange and yellow), compared to the transition or in-between city (mix of all the colours) which is a combination of both good and poor scores. The core or inner city however fairs very good in terms of safety scores (mostly light and dark green). What is really explains at a very basic level, is that neighbourhood which are tightly packed around the streets are safer in nature as they have more people inhabiting the streets. Such streets have more ‘eyes on the streets’ as people are working on or by them (formal shops, informal vendors) and as people are living next to them (houses and hotels) – thus making it safer for users. If physical infrastructure (adequate street lights, accessible walkpaths, seamless public transport) is improved in these neighbourhoods then it has more changes of being safe at all times of day and night compared to the neighbourhoods which lack them.