The recent Uber cab rape case has the entire country up in arms against what was once touted to be a cool way to commute. After all travelling in a luxury car at affordable prices was never this easy. But how many are willing to risk the lax security associated with unregistered transport providers that engage unverified drivers? In the light of the recent rape in Delhi, transport providers and platforms that facilitate engaging a ride are going all out to ensure as much security as possible to their users.
Akbar Rasheed, founder of Taxi One, an app that lets you book a cab through their platform says, “Some of the reputed cab companies have their vehicles fitted with GPS trackers and also ensure that they check if the user happens to be a woman travelling alone. They make sure they have certain safety measures in place for their users. Also cabs plying in the Cyberabad area have to ensure that the vehicles and drivers are registered with the police station there and the driver has been verified by the cops.” He goes on to add, “We have tied up with cab companies that have been in the business for more than a decade, have a certain market standing, are registered with the RTA and are within the legal framework. Being registered also makes them accountable, hence improving security for users.”
With people demanding that there be a database with driver details and his antecedents verified for a safer ride, the Cyberabad police’s move fits right in. CoYatri, a social platform that lets people car pool with others headed to the same inter-city destination, also ensures that each user’s details are recorded in their database before they can hitch a ride. “One can’t have a security guard in every vehicle. What we do from our end is to record on our database, all user details like e-mail ids, phone numbers, company details and a copy of any government approved id card, before they can sign up as members on our website and post or share a ride. Also women have the option of filtering car poolers by requesting for only women co-passengers,” says Pradeep Reddy, co-founder of CoYatri, which is largely used by the IT crowd to travel inter-city.
Anurag Singh Rathor, founder and CEO of Zify, a similar car-pooling platform for travel within the city, goes a step further and verifies the details provided by the users. “Car owners have to provide copies of their drivers’ license and RC books, while users looking to hitch a ride have to give in copies of their PAN cards. We also request for addresses of users, we then verify the details they have provided to check for authenticity and social profiling. This might restrict the number of users signing up with our service, but at least we can ascertain security to a large extent,” he says.
It isn’t just cab service providers that are going that extra mile to ensure passenger safety.
Auto Hona, a local call auto service, also makes sure that all their passengers get a call back half an hour after the time of journey to check if they’ve reached their destinations. “It’s something we have done right since we launched to make sure our clients have had a comfortable and safe ride. While one can’t eliminate the risk of commuting by an auto altogether, what we can do is mitigate it. We are also working on fitting GPS trackers in the autos that have signed up their services with us. Also if there is a woman or child commuting by one of our autos what we do is request them for an alternative number and send the vehicle and driver details to both the user and the alternate number that they provide,” explains Shashank Chintapenta, co-founder of Auto Hona.
