The driver partners working for the ridesharing giant can work with flexible timings and pay the company some percentage of their income as service commission. The drivers can choose the flexible time as the service is available for 24×7; however the driver must work for six to eight hours. They can either drive for full stretch or take breaks. The ride hailing company offers the drivers with full time and part time driving jobs, so the drivers can enjoy working with Uber.
New feature of the company
Depending on the city where the ridesharing giant operates its hailing service, the driver partners have to undergo verification and background checks. The city officials in some of the cities require the ridesharing company to take fingerprint verification to verify the drivers have criminal records or not.
The main reason for the City officials and authorities asking the company to take the regulation test is because of the frequent complaints accused on the drivers.
Uber has launched a new feature to its mobile app to ensure the safety of the riders and to ensure the passengers that the company’s mobile application is accountable. The real-time ID check is the new feature introduced by the ridesharing app that will ensure the passengers that the person driving the cab is a registered Uber driver and the feature is at present is available in five major cities in India and will later introduce the feature in other cities where the company is operating its ride sharing service.
The drivers will be frequently asked to take selfie in the mobile app before they accept the ride request and the photo will be compared with the corresponding account that is registered in the Uber’s database. And if the photo in the database does not match with the selfie sent by the cab driver, then the account will be temporarily blocked and the company will look into the details regarding the mismatch and take the required actions.
Drivers halt but the cabs hail riders
One of the Uber drive was accused for his bad behavior and the rider filed a complaint against the driver. When the case was investigated, it was found that the person was not the driver, but his friend.
The ridesharing companies offer their drivers with many discounts and deals that help them to earn more than what they would earn from a traditional taxi driver and the drivers can work for flexible timings. So, the driver who owned the cab took a break and in his friend took the cab and accepted the request from the rider. By this, both the people earn money from the ridesharing company and cheat the company and the passengers.
Though the ridesharing company verifies the driver details before registering the account, they had no assurance that the same person is driving the cab or someone else is driving the cab. Because of the misuse of the ridesharing service by some of the drivers, the company has now decided to launch a new feature in its existing mobile application that will periodically ask the drivers to take selfie through Uber’s mobile app even before accepting the ride request. The app will use the Microsoft’s Cognitive Service that helps in building the application with strong algorithms simply by using a few codes in it and the service works across different platforms like the Windows, Android and iOs devices.
Uber India- significant market
The ridesharing company has launched its new real time identification feature in 5 major cities of the country namely Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Delhi. And then the company is able to retain positive feedbacks from the feature, it will launch the feature in other parts of the country where the Uber service is available.
Among the world’s largest population, India has the largest number of population similar to China. So, the ridesharing giant is focusing on the larger user base to increase its standard in the Indian market that will reflect in the Global market. Uber’s local rival in India is Ola, a startup based in Bangalore. The company operates only in the country, while Uber is a global company. However, beating Ola in the India market is the most important task of the ridesharing giant.
The ridesharing giant has four lakh independent drivers in India working for its service and the company operates in twenty nine cities in the country. The company came up with this new feature after receiving complaints about the mismatch of the drivers in the account and those who hail the riders and the mistake was from the driver end- by sharing their account with others. The company is trying to suppress these kinds of issues in the earlier stage so as to avoid big problems that might arise in the future if it is not addressed at present.
Precautionary measure by the company
Even before going online, the riders can feel safe that the app will check whether the person riding the cab is a registered Uber driver or not. Once when the ride request is sent by the user, the drivers will be prompted by the app to take selfie from the Uber app.
When the selfie is takes, the app will immediately use the Cognitive services that will match the driver’s photo from their registered account with the selfie. If both the photos match, the driver will be able to access the ride request and proceed as usual with the ride. But if the photo does not match, the system will immediately block the driver’s account temporarily, so that they will not be able to receive any ride request. The ridesharing company will then investigate regarding the account any check what went wrong with the account and the driver who is found guilty will be removed from the company.
Joe Sullivan, the Chief Security Officer of the ridesharing giant said that the implementation of the new feature will provide the account of the drivers and prevent from any fraudulent issues and builds the accountability in the mobile app that will help in assuring the passengers that an authenticated person is hailing the ride. The initiative feature will help the company in protecting both the drivers and riders and ensure them a safe Uber ride.
Last year, the ridesharing giant had piloted and rolled out the feature in the United States and with the advancement in the technology, the average time taken for the verification is not more than a few seconds and the company said that they were successful in checking around ninety nine percent of the driver accounts in its pilot program.
The ridesharing company has a team of successful experts who ensure safe and trusted service by exploring new technologies that can be implemented in the ride hailing industry that will protect the and secure the safety of the passengers and the drivers.
The ridesharing giant has implemented the same technology feature the many other countries like Singapore, Australia, South Africa, UAE, Philippines, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, Indonesia and Brazil. With the success of the feature it has plans to extend it even in other countries where the company has operational service. Even other ridesharing companies will soon follow the same type of verification concept to protect their drivers and riders.
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