Uber India has taken a number of steps to ensure the safety of both passengers and drivers. It is said that these steps are mainly aimed at ensuring the safety of female riders.
According to a report published by Business Standard, the new features include audio recording, special options for women drivers, customizable safety settings and an SOS button.
Audio Recording:
If either the driver or the passenger, either party feels uncomfortable while riding in the vehicle, either of them can make audio recordings for the entire duration.
This audio recording will be completely secure and confidential. Unless this recording is submitted as a ‘safety report’, even Uber authorities will not be able to listen to it.
This arrangement is implemented in accordance with India’s One-Party Consent Act and can be used anywhere in the country.
Special Option for Female Driver:
This service is mainly introduced for the protection of women drivers. The new management is based on data collected from women drivers. Where female drivers can accommodate only requests from female passengers. In order to ensure the safety of women drivers especially late at night.
The company claims that they have already completed more than 21 thousand trips through this new management. Uber says they want more female drivers to work with them. But, that will be possible only when women feel safe driving with passengers. Incidentally, currently only 2 percent of Uber drivers are women.
Safety Preferences:
Through ‘Safety Preferences’ management, passengers can customize or customize safety settings as per their needs and conveniences on every trip.
For example – they can turn on the ‘Ridecheck’ option whenever they want. In that case, if there is any irregularity, it will be caught. For example – driving on other roads instead of the prescribed route, standing for a long time at a particular place etc. Besides, in this case the audio recording will start automatically and all the information of that visit will go to the trusted numbers.
SOS Service:
With this arrangement, the driver and passenger – anyone who wants to – can send the complete information of the trip, including the current location, to the police emergency department and seek help from them directly.
The company claims that this service is already operational in Telangana. This time it will be launched in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra as well.