Safer Cities Program

The Safer Cities Program has invested $30 million to help improve perceptions of safety in our cities and towns, particularly for women, girls and gender diverse people.

The program has three aims, which are aligned with the United Nations Safer Cities for Girls program:

• Increasing women and girls’ safety and access to public spaces
• Enabling women and girls’ to move freely and alone in their community
• Increasing women and girls’ engagement with how the spaces around them are designed and managed.

The program has engaged with women, girls and gender diverse people to understand their perspectives and co-design initiatives to improve perceptions of safety when walking to, through and within public spaces and transport hubs precincts.

Transport for NSW is working collaboratively with other NSW Government agencies and local councils across NSW to trial a range of initiatives aimed at making public spaces feel safer, more vibrant and welcoming for communities. 

The program uses a holistic approach to improving perceptions of safety through trialling both on-the-ground and non-physical initiatives including a public education campaign and new guides, tools and case studies.

What we heard: perceptions of safety in public spaces and transport hub precincts

As part of planning and research to support the Safer Cities program, Transport for NSW developed the Safer Cities Survey which was open to the community between 13 December 2022 and 8 February 2023.

The purpose of the Safer Cities Survey (PDF, 8.42 MB) was to gather data and evidence around perceptions of safety for people across NSW when going about their day-to-day travel in public spaces.

Findings from the Safer Cities Survey can be used to help create safer and more vibrant public spaces, such as through approaches to infrastructure, amenities, and activations that aim to help improve the community’s perception of safety in our cities and towns.

Read the full Safer Cities Survey Report here

Read a one-page summary of the Report here

Safer Cities: Her Way

A partnership program with 10 pilot councils to co-design and trial initiatives to help improve women, girls, and gender diverse people’s perception of safety in local public spaces and transport hub precincts.

Safer Cities State Partnerships

A partnership program, co-designing trial initiatives with women, girls and gender diverse people to help improve perceptions of safety on state government-owned land across NSW.

Street Harassment

As part of NSW’s Safer Cities program, we want to help remove any doubt around what constitutes street harassment.