Bike taxi start-up to induct more women drivers in Chennai to ensure safety

In a bid to ensure safety and comfort of women passengers, the bike taxi operator Rapido plans to deploy more women drivers. They also intend to expand their women drivers-only feature in some selected pockets like women’s college.

The company through these measures expects to get more women passengers. For this the start-up plans to deploy over 2,500 women riders across the country in the next three month and have started scouting for more women drivers to expand their pool.

In Tamil Nadu’s capital city, Chennai itself the company wants to enrol more than 500 women captains. They are in touch with several non-profit organisations to provide training to women hailing from underprivileged backgrounds. To provide incentives, the company is offering additional benefits including flexible working hours, insurance, minimum guarantee pay, and low commission.

Company’s spokesperson stated that it aims to provide financial support to women, break gender barriers in the transportation sector and provide more diverse transportation options for passengers.

Apart from this Rapido plans to expand their Bike Pink service. This facility which is already in existence allows users to travel only with a female driver. The start-up recently introduced this feature at 10 women’s colleges in Chennai. These institutions include Stella Maris College for Women, Ethiraj College for Women, Queen Maris College for Women, SIET Women’s College, MOP Vaishnav College for Women, Quaid-E-Millath College for Women and Chellamal Women’s College.

Specialised services like Bike Pink provide a sense of safety to women as there have been incidents of harassment and indecent incidents in bike taxi platforms.

Making an effort to reduce carbon footprint, Rapido has been providing women drivers with electric bikes.

Also read: Delhi to have colourful autos and more women drivers