Business News sponsored by Vodacom Transformation of Work:

inDrive, the global mobility and urban services platform, has upgraded the safety features of its ride-hailing app, to further protect the people using its platform. inDrive’s updated Safety Centre now allows their support team to contact a user’s trusted contacts in emergencies, and makes it easier to share information with emergency services - among other things.

“We’re absolutely focused on protecting the safety of our driver-partners and users – right from joining the app, through each ride and thereafter, when we need to secure our users’ personal data,” says Vincent Lilane, Business Development Representative at inDrive South Africa. Besides, our company is growing rapidly, so constantly improving is critical. These upgrades  make it easier for our support teams to react effectively when a passenger or driver needs help.”

So what’s changed?

As before, users can manually add, edit and delete trusted contacts. Now, following the upgrades, the number of trusted contacts has been increased from one to five, and  inDrive's support team can reach out to these contacts during emergencies, if the user isn’t available. (The support team can only view trusted contacts, but can’t edit, add or delete them).  And, by clicking on the app’s SOS-button, users can see all the information needed when requesting help or reporting an incident – along with a button to call police or ambulance services.

inDrive’s app design has also been updated to improve user experience, making the Safety Centre more visible. 

inDrive is also testing photo sharing and automatic translation of chat messages, which have been added to the in-app chat function. These make it easier for the driver and rider to clarify the pickup point, and communicate in the same language while traveling. Passengers and drivers stay within the application when using these features, so there’s no need to use across other platforms, thereby protecting personal information. For now the feature is currently being tested by a limited number of users to improve its functionality before it is rolled out to everyone.

Today’s update is a part of the inDrive Safety Pact and joins existing safety features, including driver verification and onboarding, the ability to share a ride in real-time with a trusted contact, the option to select each other based on existing ratings and reviews, and the visibility of the final destination address of the order so drivers can make informed decisions and decline orders if they seem unsafe. inDrive puts the power of choice in the hands of drivers and riders, by making this information available when selecting rides, so the app’s users are empowered to choose safety - just as one does in always remembering to buckle up.

The inDrive app update is available for both Android and iOS devices. To update your app, please visit the inDrive page in  your preferred app store.