Uber is beginning a service for ladies to decide on feminine drivers and fellow riders
Uber mentioned it is beginning a program to permit ladies passengers to select feminine drivers or share a journey with different ladies, with pilots slated to start within the subsequent few weeks in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit.
In a Wednesday assertion, Uber mentioned that girls clients will see an choice known as “ladies drivers” within the app. If the wait time for a girl driver is longer than they want, they’ll decide one other journey — presumably with a male driver — for a faster pickup, the corporate mentioned.
“Throughout the U.S., ladies riders and drivers have advised us they need the choice to be matched with different ladies on journeys,” Uber mentioned in its assertion.
Nevertheless, longer wait occasions might be a difficulty for ladies who wish to get picked up by a feminine driver, provided that Uber has mentioned about 1 in 5 of its drivers are ladies. Clients may also pre-book rides with ladies drivers, the corporate mentioned Wednesday.
“That’s what we anticipate to study extra about throughout this pilot. Riders might expertise longer wait occasions if ladies drivers are unavailable or additional away. If that’s the case, they’ll select to attend, reserve a journey with a lady driver for a later time, or select a journey with any accessible driver that won’t match their desire,” an Uber spokesperson mentioned in an electronic mail to CBS MoneyWatch.
Riders may also set a desire for ladies drivers of their Uber settings, which is able to increase the probabilities of being paired with a feminine driver, though such a match is not assured, the corporate mentioned.
Likewise, Uber drivers who’re ladies may also request journeys with feminine riders, together with throughout peak hours after they can earn extra, the corporate mentioned. Girls drivers can toggle the “ladies rider desire” choice of their app settings to get paired with feminine clients, it added.
Uber has supplied comparable packages in different nations, rolling out its “ladies rider desire” in Saudi Arabia in 2019, after ladies got the best to drive in that nation. “Since then, the characteristic has expanded to 40 nations, finishing over 100 million journeys,” the corporate mentioned.
In 2023, ride-hailing firm Lyft launched its Girls+ Join characteristic, which matches ladies and nonbinary drivers with extra ladies and nonbinary riders. The characteristic is accessible in all U.S. cities the place Lyft operates.
