Uber, one of the most well-known companies that facilitate personal transportation all over the world, has had a series of problems in New Delhi, India, that has forced the company to take serious measures. Uber, as a brand, is not a company that deals directly with the transportation of people by taxi; it is a tech company that does not own cars and does not employ drivers, but it collaborated with other companies that do so, in order to give the clients a professional experience while traveling from one place to another. The Transport Department in India forced Uber to create a Panic Button , that will be visible to clients, ready to be seen and used at any time.
This button needs to be connected to the local Police Department that will have people handling a special line designed to respond at any given time. In addition, taxi passengers will have the option of using an application that connects them with five other people and lets them know the directions of their route and where they are at a certain point. On another hand, Uber believes that the buttons and the applications will create confusion and will be prone to wear and tear.
One of the major problems that this novelty brings is that every taxi company will have to have its own Panic Button. As a consequence, one taxi car will be mandated to have more than one button, maybe two or three, taking into consideration that a cab might work for various taxi companies. This particular issue will create a discomfort for simple, unprepared citizens that are also in a hurry to get somewhere as fast as possible. If a situation occurs to a passenger, he or she will have to stay and study the buttons and pick the one that is the correspondent to the platform of the taxi he jumped into. The general manager of Uber in India estimates that in these kind of situations, the percentage of success will never be over 25%.
“In addition to causing confusion, we found that not only are physical buttons prone to wear and tear, but also mechanical malfunctions. There is no way to ensure that they are kept in working condition across all the cars in the city.”
The reason why this new technology had to be created is that unfortunately, a woman in New Delhi that found herself in a taxi has been raped. As a consequence, at the moment, Uber is being banned in New Delihi and also in the entire southern state of Karntaka.
Image Source: IB Times