Operators look to make Bike-taxi services 'safe' for women

Gurgaon: Operators of bike-taxis, which have over the past few months been emerging as viable, convenient and low cost solutions for travel in the city, are now looking to attract more women riders to use the service.

"We have around 400 mandatory steps that the driver needs to pass. We take a ride test and a third party does all the verification plus there are vehicle instructions and mandatory training," says Aarvind Sanka, co-founder of Rapido, an app based service .

Sanka says 10 per cent of their daily customers are women and the organisation is working on bringing on board more women drivers.

However for some people like Rahul Kumar, a resident of Gurgaon, are skeptical of the safety of bike-taxis.

"It may be cheap but I still wouldn't prefer it for a long distance travel in the city. And somehow, I'm also not too sure if I would hire it for my mother or sister. It's a new thing in town and still needs be tested before being too sure of its safety," says Kumar.

Ruchica Tomar, spokeswomen of ride-hailing service Uber says safety for pillon riders is paramount irrespective of gender.

"When you book an UberMOTO bike, you get all the details of the motorcycle, including the bike number and the details of the driver. You can share it with your parents and also post it as status.

"Besides that proper verification is done of the riders, they are trained and both the rider and pillion rider are given helmets to wear. We have a rating system as well where we find out why a particular driver was given high rating and what made our customers feel comfortable with him," she says.

Both Uber and Rapido have an SOS button installed in the app which are monitored by their teams.