Women love trains, men like cars – nobody is crazy about the bus
Men and women move through the world differently. Men gravitate toward control, independence, the hum of an engine under their command. Women lean toward connection, comfort, the rhythm of shared experience. The car offers autonomy; the train offers company. These aren’t just transportation choices – they’re expressions of how we imagine freedom, safety, and progress.
At least, that’s how it looks – if you ask the Swedes.
A pattern in the numbers
A nationwide survey by Indikator Opinion for Swedish rail operator SJ reveals a quiet but consistent gender divide in how Scandinavians travel. Of the 2,141 respondents surveyed between May and June 2025, 68 percent of women reported travelling by train in the past year, compared to 61 percent of men.
When asked about their preferred mode for long domestic trips, women chose the train nearly as often as men chose the car: 47 percent versus 37 percent for women, 37 percent versus 46 percent for men.
The bus, meanwhile, attracted just 1 percent of either group – a reminder that not all public transport is created equal in the public imagination.
“The results correlate quite clearly with several other surveys showing environmental issues are more important for women than for men,” noted Johan Cleris, insight manager at SJ, in the company’s press release.
Who travels, and why
The survey also mapped patterns by age, education, income, and geography. Younger, urban, and more educated respondents were significantly more likely to choose rail. Older, rural, and less formally educated groups leaned toward cars.
These findings mirror the core tension in Europe’s modal shift ambitions: infrastructure alone doesn’t move people – trust, habit, and cultural resonance do.
What Sweden’s data suggests is that the train isn’t just competing with the car on speed or cost. It’s competing on identity, on what kind of traveller you imagine yourself to be. For women, especially younger women, the train appears to signal environmental responsibility and social fluency.
What can we learn?
This isn’t uniquely Swedish. Similar undercurrents shape travel behaviour across the continent. As Europe pushes toward ambitious emissions targets and cross-border rail expansion, understanding these gendered and generational preferences becomes essential. Policy can fund tracks and trains, but it can’t mandate affection.
That requires a subtler kind of persuasion – one rooted in how people want to see themselves, and who they want to share the journey with.
In the end, it’s not steel or speed that decides how we move, but what we trust – and who we want to share the journey with.
The bus, apparently, still has some convincing to do.