When safety is not free: mitigating the transportation pink tax through safety-oriented policy interventions

Influenced by sociocultural norms and ongoing safety shortcomings in urban transportation systems, women frequently perceive a higher personal risk during routine travel. Building on the concept of the “pink tax” in consumer markets, this study introduces the notion of a transportation pink tax as a gendered safety-compensation burden, the additional expected monetary cost that women incur when safety concerns prompt compensatory behaviors, such as choosing more expensive travel modes. Using a stated preference (SP) experiment conducted in Shanghai (N = 785; 391 females and 394 males), we examine mode choice among metro, ride-hailing, and autonomous robotaxi services. Both multinomial and mixed logit models are employed to estimate gender-differentiated preferences, derive willingness-to-pay (WTP) for safety-related attributes, and account for unobserved heterogeneity. The results indicate that women place significantly higher marginal utility on safety-enhancing features, including female ride-hailing drivers, advanced in-vehicle security systems, and improved lighting in robotaxi access segments, reflecting a greater safety-compensation premium in their utility functions. For example, women’s WTP for advanced security measures in robotaxi services exceeds that of men by 3.90, 26.05, and 27.86 CNY for short-, medium-, and long-distance trips, respectively. Importantly, we show that this marginal safety premium translates into a tangible cost burden when women shift toward higher-cost modes under unsafe conditions. Policy scenario simulations indicate that enhancing metro safety, through measures such as shorter walking distances, upgraded in-carriage CCTV, additional security staff patrols, and improved lighting, could raise women’s metro usage and reduce their monthly travel expenditures by approximately 26–121 CNY, thereby alleviating the gendered safety-compensation burden. These results suggest that transportation gender inequities arise not from inherent preference differences, but from structural safety externalities that disproportionately impact women. Implementing safety-by-design principles in public transit and emerging autonomous mobility services can therefore lower gendered cost burdens and foster more equitable urban mobility.