Six years in the past, Uber launched a characteristic in Saudi Arabia that allow girls drivers on its ride-hailing app ask to be related to feminine riders. Since then, the “girls preferences” characteristic has rolled out to 40 international locations, from Argentina and Brazil to Canada, India and Mexico.
In just a few weeks, this characteristic will lastly make its technique to america, the corporate mentioned on Wednesday. Uber plans to pilot the characteristic in Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Ladies will have the ability to set a choice for a girl driver within the Uber app, rising their possibilities of a match. After that’s achieved, when a feminine rider requests a visit, they are going to see an choice known as “girls drivers.” If the wait is longer than anticipated, the rider can go for one other trip, in line with Uber.
Ladies drivers can swap their settings to “girls rider choice.” This setting might be modified if the motive force needs to obtain journey requests from all riders.
Experience-hailing corporations like Uber and Lyft have grappled with methods to enhance security and appeal to the broadest set of customers — each on the motive force and rider sides. But it surely hasn’t been a straightforward street.
Experience-hailing security has been a long-standing subject, one which has typically pitted advocates and regulators towards corporations like Uber and Lyft. And whereas uncommon, reviews of sexual assaults and deadly assaults have solely fueled these issues.
Uber reported 36 bodily assault fatalities in 2021 and 2022, in line with its newest U.S. security report launched final 12 months. Uber famous that bodily assault fatalities had jumped from earlier years. Whereas the incidents nonetheless made up a tiny fraction of the 1.8 billion journeys that had been made in 2021 and 2022 within the U.S., the uptick prompted the corporate to launch a wide range of options to extend security, together with verified rider badges and choices to audio and video document rides.
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Sexual assault incidents have dropped persistently since Uber started reporting the info in 2017. Uber reported 5,981 sexual assaults from 2017 to 2018, and that determine dropped by greater than half to 2,717 within the 2021 to 2022 interval.
In the meantime, Uber and Lyft have sought methods to draw extra feminine drivers. Each corporations have extra male drivers than girls — as an illustration, about 1 in 5 of Uber drivers within the U.S. are girls. The “girls preferences” characteristic, designed to provide each the rider and driver some management, might assist appeal to extra customers on each side.
Uber was the primary main ride-hailing firm to launch the ladies preferences characteristic. Nevertheless, rival Lyft was the primary to supply a women-matching characteristic in america — its major market.
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