(Credit: Uber)
Uber is introducing a new feature to let women drivers match with women riders and vice versa. The company will pilot this "Women Preferences" option in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit in the next few weeks.
Once the feature becomes available, women riders will see an option to select female drivers while booking or reserving a trip. To increase the chances of being matched with a woman driver, they can adjust their preferences in app settings.
(Credit: Uber)The feature works in the opposite direction as well. A fifth of Uber drivers are women, and they will be allowed to accept trips for just female riders. "Simply toggle on the 'Women Rider Preference' in their app settings," Uber says. If a driver feels like there's too much wait time between trips or isn't getting female riders at all, the preference can be turned off.
(Credit: Uber)When enabled during peak hours like evenings, the feature would provide women drivers "more opportunities to earn on their terms with flexibility and confidence," Uber says.
Uber also hopes the feature will encourage more female drivers to join its network. "The product is really popular whenever we're able to launch it… Our expectation is that it's going to be just as popular in the US both with drivers and with prospective drivers," Camiel Irving, vice president of operations in the US and Canada, tells Bloomberg.
The concept isn't entirely new. Uber started testing it with a Women Rider Preference in Saudi Arabia in 2019, before expanding it to 40 other countries. That feature only allowed women drivers to make the choice, while the new one allows both parties to set their preferences.
Rival Lyft recently introduced a similar feature, allowing people to mark a driver as a favorite. Doing so will increase their chances of being matched with the same driver again for future trips. This comes after Lyft added a Women+ Connect option in 2023, which aimed to match female and nonbinary drivers with more women and nonbinary riders.
The Uber update arrives after multiple lawsuits alleging sexual harassment by Uber drivers were consolidated into a class-action lawsuit against the company earlier this month. The lawsuit claims Uber "should be held liable for these sexual assaults because it negligently failed to screen its drivers properly." The trial is set to begin in December.
Editors' Note: The story has been updated with more information about Lyft.