Uber signs agreement with Safetipin for safety auditing

US-based taxi service provider Uber, on Monday, said it has partnered with mobile safety and auditing service Safetipin to ensure better safety for Uber riders in India.

Initially, Uber will run a pilot in New Delhi for five months starting 25 February, and then roll out across a few global markets, including Bogota, Colombia and Nairobi.

Once rolled out globally, Uber will cover about 20,000 km of city roads and areas with the new safety auditing service, the company said in a statement.

Uber got into trouble in India in December after a passenger was raped in New Delhi by one of the Uber drivers. Following this, Uber was forced to stop operations in New Delhi.

SafetiPin, a free app, collects data of locations based on nine parameters that together contribute to the perception of safety by measuring actual location conditions in order to generate a safety score for an area. The information is supplemented with comments and photographs from real users and trained safety auditors. The data collected will also be shared with city governments for urban planning and safety campaigns for safer travels around the city.

Uber will advance the contribution to SafetiPin's data collection across the city by providing access to partner-drivers and their cars, the company said in a statement. Partner-drivers will be trained and work at night with SafetiPin's safety auditors.

"Uber will continue its tireless efforts to build a comprehensive ecosystem that brings best in class safety to the streets of Delhi and across India. This partnership builds on SafetiPin's understanding and expertise in this field. By working together on this meaningful cross-border initiative we hope to provide local communities with the technologies to enable them to travel more safely around their cities, here in India and around the world," Gagan Bhatia, general manager, Uber Delhi said in a statement.