Lyft is expanding its Women+ Connect program to a number of new cities. This initiative originally launched in a but now its deployment is much greater.
Women+ Connect does it It connects women and non-binary riders with similarly identifying drivers, and vice versa. This is an optional feature that aims to increase safety when traveling, in addition to encouraging women and non-binary people to become drivers on the platform. Lyft says nearly half of drivers are women, but they only make up 23% of drivers.
Here's how it works: you enable the feature and it will connect you to an appropriate driver based on the gender you entered when registering. For drivers, it uses the gender associated with the registered license. If there are no female or non-binary drivers looking for fares, you'll still be matched with a male driver, so you won't be left out in the cold.
The program started in just a few cities, including Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco. This has apparently been a huge success for Lyft, with the company noting that 2.4 million riders have activated Women+ Connect since launching in September and more than half of eligible drivers have started using the service. It also indicates that this feature has the highest satisfaction rate of all the management tools ever launched by the company.
Women+ Connect opens today in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Dallas, Washington DC and elsewhere. Check the app to see if the feature is available where you live.
This is the latest tool used by ride-sharing platforms to increase safety and reduce cases of Uber recently made it easier for and live security guards. The platform also started for recording audio while traveling.