Title: Public transport systems and safety of female commuters in low-and-middle- income
countries: a systematic scoping review
Version: 1 Date: 18 Jun 2024
Reviewer's report:
General comments:
• Thank you for inviting me to review the manuscript. Congratulations to the authors for the
comprehensive paper of a very important topic of the safety of female commuters in public
transport systems across LMICs. Several suggestions are outlined below for the authors.
Description of Methods:
• Title (and related to methods): "Public transport systems and safety of female commuters in
low-and-middle-income countries: a systematic scoping review.” Could you please elaborate on
why you refer to this as a systematic scoping review instead of just a scoping review?
• Line 110-111: “This scoping review study question is as follows: What research evidence
linked to public transport systems and safety of women commuters in LMICs over the past
decade exist?” Could you provide justification for the selection of the past decade as the
timeframe for including studies in this scoping review?
• Table 1: Exclusion: Review studies such as literature review, rapid review, and expert
review. Abstracts only, conference documents, editorials, non-peer-reviewed publication such
as reports, theses and dissertations. Could you provide justification for these exclusions in
relation to the scoping review methodology and the necessity to explore the breadth and depth
of available literature?
•  Table 1: Inclusion: All publication languages. Could you elaborate on how you handled and
ensured a thorough understanding of the non-English literature identified in your study?
• Table 1: Inclusion: Publications within 10 years (between 2012 and 2023). See previous
comment.
• Supplementary file: For the electronic literature searches using the string (female OR
women OR girl) AND (public transport OR taxi OR minibus) AND (safety), the systematic
search approach is commendable. However, could you justify that this search string would be
exhaustive in identifying all literature relevant to the research aims? Specifically, how did you
account for literature where incidents were reported as harassment, assault, theft, crime, etc.,
rather than using general terms of safety? How were share rides accounted for in the search
strategy?
• Figure 1: What registers were searched?
Narrative Structure:
• Line 70: "… Low- and-middle-income countries (LMICs) …" Please ensure consistency in
the capitalisation format (either all lowercase or capitalise each word).
• Line 73-74: “The safety of women in public transport systems encompasses a wide range
of issues, including but not limited to, physical and sexual harassment, violence, theft, and
accidents.” Could you clarify what the term ‘accidents’ refers to here? Are you referring to
preventable transport-related injuries?
• Line 228-236 and Figure 2: It may be worth mentioning the distribution of studies among low-
income, lower middle-income, and upper middle-income countries, or geographical regions.
• Table 2: For cross-sectional studies, both analytical and observational?
• It may be beneficial to summarise studies that included (and did not include) measures of
association between predictors and outcome of incidences.
• Line 248: "1. Safety concerns, fear of abuse and harassment." Could you clarify the distinction
between 'abuse' and 'assault' in this context? It appears 'abuse' is used multiple times throughout
the text. Could you clarify and justify if it was used interchangeably with 'assault'? While both
terms are indeed serious and can have severe consequences for victims, they carry slightly
different meanings and implications.
• Line 266-269: “However, research conducted in India and United Kingdom, with a focus
on unveiling the challenges of public sexual harassment faced by women during their public
transport journeys in megacities, highlighted the discrepancies in legal protections and safety
policies for women, with India lacking comprehensive safeguards (23).” Was the study
conducted in the United Kingdom included in this review on the safety of female commuters
in LMICs?
• Line 289-291: “It further reported that this polyvictimisation encompasses various threats,
including accident risks, dangerous driving, driver aggression, street crime, and sexual
harassment(28).” “What is meant by ‘accident risks’ in this context?
• Line 292: Does "a sense of resignation" imply feelings of powerlessness or inevitability?
• Line 311-315: " Furthermore, a multi-continental study, which encompassed Nigeria, assessed
variations in students' perceptions of safety in transit modes and city-country contexts. This
research emphasised the substantial role that cultural norms and societal contexts play in shaping
the experiences of women within public transit.” Within the limited space available, could you
provide more detail on the specific findings? The current description seems limited in conveying
the study's insights.
• Line 429-432: "Public awareness campaigns and advocacy efforts should be initiated to
address these issues and raise awareness about the importance of women's safety during public
transportation. Such initiatives can mobilise communities and stakeholders to take action." Have
previous studies investigated the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns and advocacy
efforts in addressing these issues and promoting awareness about women's safety during public
transportation?
• Line 451-481: It would be helpful to summarise this section more succinctly and add a heading
titled "Strengths and Limitations.