Uber launches “Women Preferred” feature in South Africa

Uber has announced the launch of its Women Preferred featured in South Africa, which allows women and non-binary drivers to only pick up women riders.

The feature has undergone testing and piloting in South Africa for the past few months. It has previously launched in other countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Egypt.

According to the company, it proved popular enough that Uber is now fully introducing the feature.

Uber says that it hopes that the feature will increase the number of women drivers in the rideshare industry.

“We have already doubled the number of women in our active driver base and launching the ‘Women Preferred View’ feature is another positive move towards paving the way for more women to take part in the ridesharing industry,” Busisiwe Khaba, Head of Policy for Uber Sub Saharan Africa, said in a statement,

“We are also excited that this feature enables current female drivers with the power of choice and convenience when using the Uber app.”

How the Women Preferred feature works in Uber

The feature is optional. It allows women and non-binary drivers to set a filter to only accept trip requests from women.

According to Uber, if the driver isn’t matched with a woman, they can cancel the trip without it affecting their cancellation rate.

Drivers can activate the feature at any time in the app by selecting rider gender preference in their app settings.

Meanwhile, the app will ask riders to specify their gender on the app when the driver has applied the filter.

The company plans to roll the feature out in other countries in the future too.

Feature image: Uber

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