New change for Australian Uber users with RideCheck coming
A new change is coming for Australian Uber drivers and riders to help them report when something has gone wrong on their trip. This is how it will work.
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Exclusive: Australian Uber riders and drivers are getting access to new technology to report when they have been in an accident, never reach their destination or are in an emergency situation and need help.
The global ridesharing company is bringing its RideCheck option to every state across Australia, which will launch when it detects an unexpected long stop has occurred.
Using GPS and smartphone data, the option will appear on a rider and driver’s smartphone saying: “Your ride’s been stopped for a while. Is everything okay?”
They can be asked: “Were you involved in a crash?” or “Do you need help?”
Riders and drivers have an option to respond with an automatic reply of: “I’m fine, I stopped on purpose.”
Or, they are shown a variety of options if they do need help which include an emergency assistance button, which will put them through to triple-0 straight away.
They can also report a crash and go through to Uber’s customer support team which operates 24 hours, seven days a week.
Uber Australia Communications Manager Carissa Simons told News Corp that Australia is one of the first cities to get access to the new technology after it was trialled and tested in the US and India.
She said Uber had recently been doing pilot testing here in Australia before its national rollout. More than 3.8 million Australians regularly use Uber.
“Riders and drivers will see the notification on their phones if they have been stopped for a couple of minutes,” she said.
When asked if it would be sensitive enough to pick up if someone was stuck in morning gridlock, Ms Simons said it might, but it is not designed to pick up that sort of delay.
“It would be more of an unusual stop,” she said.
“Uber is the only rideshare company in Australia to have this sort of feature being rolled out here.”
If no one responds to the alert sent to drivers and riders’ smartphones Ms Simons said the tripped is then flagged to Uber’s support centre.
“They will be able to look at the trip and see if it’s continued on as normal, or if it hasn’t they can reach out to the rider/driver or escalate to a specialist incident response team,” she said.
They will then forward it on if need be to relevant authorities.
The new RideCheck feature will be launched from Tuesday February 11.
Users do not have to update their Uber apps.
It will start working automatically as part of the app’s function.
Ms Simons said the RicdeCheck feature is only being rolled out for Uber drivers and riders at this stage, not those connected to UberEats.
Originally published as New change for Australian Uber users with RideCheck coming