Uber Black’s rider preferences feature now live in South Africa

Grabbing an Uber Black? The company on Wednesday announced that you can now tailor your trip to suit your needs through rider preferences.

The feature was announced in May and rolled out to select cities across the world. Today it’s available in South Africa.

When selecting an Uber Black, the app will now ask riders to specify their preferences.

Riders can now alert drivers if they’re travelling with suitcases, request a specific cabin temperature, or if they wish to be left alone during their trip.

Drivers will also wait a full ten minutes more for their clients.

While the feature does allow riders to personalise the ride-hailing experience, drivers don’t have to adhere to the riders’ requests.

“It’s not mandatory. The driver is an independent contractor. We’re just communicating the rider’s preference. The driver can have that information and do with it what they want,” Uber’s project manager Aydin Ghajar told TechCrunch back in May.

But drivers would probably want to follow these as closely as possible. Nobody wants to be rated four stars.

The rider preference feature is not available for Uber X or Uber Van clients.

Feature image: Memeburn