Toplu Ulaşımda Çocuk (Children in Public Transportation)

Project Period: 2019

Project Partner: UN Sivil Düşün

The public transportation system is one of the most crucial components of vibrant urban life, providing children access to fundamental rights and services such as education, health, and social life. However, in the current public transportation systems and designs, children's needs are not considered at any scale. As the City Detective Initiative, which develops rights-based data, policies, education, and design tools for urban problems on the path to creating child-friendly cities, we carried out the "Children in Public Transportation" project with the support of Etkiniz UN. This project aimed to monitor children's public transportation experiences based on children's rights and develop participatory solution proposals for child-centered public transportation planning based on the data obtained.

Graphic Design: Gökçe Genç & Erman Yılmaz, Informal Project Co. Illustrations: Gülzade Şentürk

The first phase of this work involved defining the needs for rights-based monitoring of an inclusive transportation system for children, in other words, asking rights-based questions that we can seek answers to together, especially with children. In 2020, as the City Detective Initiative, we held a workshop on Children in Public Transportation with 55 participants, including local government representatives, NGO representatives, and children. The workshop outputs, along with the experiences of the children who participated in the Urban Detective's workshop activities, are included in the report. The findings obtained were evaluated under the headings of exploratory transportation, safe transportation, accessible transportation, and ecological transportation.

Project Outputs:

• Children in Public Transportation Report: This report provides an evaluation of children's public transportation experiences by analyzing the data collected during the project. It discusses the work done within the scope of public transportation in Istanbul, evaluates the 2019-2022 planning period, and highlights the needs that continue to affect children's participation in urban life, which are overlooked and not yet included in higher-scale policies and practices. These needs were discussed in this report based on interviews with civil society organizations and the outputs from children's workshops conducted within the scope of monitoring.

• Guide and Rights Monitoring Indicators for Child-Centered Public Transportation Planning: This guide and set of indicators propose an approach that combines children's rights with urban rights in public transportation planning and decision-making processes.

It is prepared to serve as a resource for the work of local governments, urban activists, and civil society organizations that protect children's rights. It is also essential for this guide to be understandable for teacher communities, parents, and most importantly, children. Therefore, we tried to reinforce our recommendations with child-friendly narratives and games by opening certain sections of the guide to discussion with children.

Click to download the Children in Public Transportation Report.

Click to download the guide and rights monitoring indicators for child-centered public transportation planning.