By: Nick Gambino
Uber is adding a new feature that allows women to request a female driver or rider, depending whether they’re using the platform to catch a ride or are driving to make money.
“Across the US, women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips,” Camiel Irving, the Vice President of Operations at Uber for the U.S. and Canada, said in a blog post. “We’ve heard them – and now we’re introducing new ways to give them even more control over how they ride and drive.”
The Women Preferences feature on the Riders side includes a number of user-friendly options. When you go to book a trip and plug in your destination, you’ll see an option labeled “Women Drivers” at the top of the list of ride options that include UberX, UberXL, Uber Black, etc. Click that and it’ll get to work trying to find one. You can even reserve a trip in advance with a female driver.
If this is something you want to opt into more regularly you can even make the change at the setting level. Simply set the preference for women drivers in your Uber app settings and they will work to match you with one whenever you book a ride. It’s not guaranteed one will be available, but that is the first move they will make based on your preference.
For Drivers, it’s even easier. You can simply toggle on the “Women Rider Preference” switch in your app settings. If you want to widen your net outside of just women, you can switch it off at any time.
The new Women Preferences set of features are rolling out in the coming weeks in major cities – Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco. This will serve as the pilot before they go nationwide. Per the Uber blog post, most drivers on the platform are men, so there is going to be a lot of tweaking to ensure women can match up with other women easily.
