Uber Technologies Inc. is piloting a new ride type in the US that will match female riders and drivers, expanding access to a safety feature it already offers in some international markets.
The service will launch in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit over the next few weeks, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Riders will see a new on-demand ride option called “Women Drivers” alongside the existing UberX, Comfort, UberXL and Black offerings. Customers can reserve such a trip in advance, or set their preference in the app settings to increase the likelihood of being matched with a woman driver.
Female drivers, who make up about 1 in 5 of Uber’s US driver population, can similarly choose that preference in the settings of their driver app. Drivers’ eligibility for the program will be based on the gender listed on their license. For riders, it will be determined by their first name or whether they specified their gender as female on their Uber profile.
“It’s about giving women more choice, more control, and more comfort when they ride and drive,” said Camiel Irving, vice president of operations in the US and Canada. Cities that have a bigger population of women drivers will be the ones that get the feature sooner, she said, but added that the three options are designed to allow different ways of matching without compromising wait times and service availability.
The company also sees the option as a way to attract more female drivers to the platform.
“The product is really popular whenever we're able to launch it,” said Irving. “Our expectation is that it's going to be just as popular in the US both with drivers and with prospective drivers.”
The introduction of the feature comes nearly two years after rival Lyft Inc. introduced a similar offering in the US, underscoring a tit-for-tat competition between the two rideshare apps to win over customers with features tailored to certain demographics.
Earlier this year, for instance, the two companies rolled out simplified versions of their apps for elderly riders in close succession. In May, Uber also introduced a $2.99 monthly pass aimed at commuters that lets users lock in prices for for favorite routes. The launch came months after Lyft debuted a similar product.
However, unlike Lyft’s women-matching program, which also includes non-binary users, Uber’s product is solely for those with commonly identifiable feminine names or those who identify as female in the app. The company has had “a couple of conversations” with LGBTQ organizations and concluded this “is not quite the right way to serve the non-binary population right now,” Irving said in an interview.
Uber launched the matching feature for female drivers in Saudi Arabia in 2019 to mark a landmark decision that granted women the right to drive. Since then, it said, it’s completed more than 100 million such trips having expanded the feature to drivers in 40 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India and Mexico. It has also tested the feature for riders in Germany and France.
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