Uber Nairobi partners with SafetiPin

Uber Nairobi partners with SafetiPin

App-based transportation network and taxi company, Uber announced that it has partnered with a map-based mobile safety app, SafetiPin, for its Nairobi business.

Uber, which launched its smartphone app in Kenya in January this year, says it plans to advance the contribution to SafetiPin’s data collection efforts across Nairobi by providing access to partner-drivers and their cars.

These partner-drivers, based at different locations in the city, will be trained and work at night with SafetiPin’s safety auditors, reads a statement.

According to the statement SafetiPin works by collecting 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. And the information is supplemented with comments and photographs from real users and trained safety auditors.

Kaitlin Freedman, operations manager, Uber Nairobi said, “Uber is committed to bringing the best in class safety to the streets of Nairobi. By working together with SafetiPin on this cross-border initiative we hope to provide local communities with the technologies to enable them to travel more safely around their cities.”

“... As part of our work in cities, we are delighted to have Uber’s participation and support in key cities around the world. This association will provide us with a much larger data set that would otherwise not have been possible, and the process is easier with Uber’s engaged and professional driver community,” said Ashish Basu, founder of SafetiPin.

The Uber and SafetiPin collaboration was born in New Delhi, India and it is expected in other global markets in the coming months, with the aim to cover approximately 20,000 km of city roads and areas.

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