Indian cab hailing company, Ola has recently taken a crucial step in delivering safety to its passengers by rolling out a real-time ride monitoring system, the company announced on Tuesday.
“Ola Guardian, the real-time monitoring system to strengthen ride safety of customers, has been launched as a pilot in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Pune,” the city-based cab-aggregator said in a statement.
The whole system of monitoring is based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools. The system is expected to go live in two cities at the start, Delhi and Kolkata, by the end of October the company will launch the system in other Indian cities by the end of the year 2018.
The project Guardian will monitor all on-going trips through AI-driven tracking systems and it will analyze any kind of ride indicators, like route deviations, mid-way, and unexpected stops and many more.
The creation of safety triggers will be solely based on the time of travel and many other ride indicators and it will be monitored by Ola’s safety response team.
“Post analyzing the data, the safety response team will connect with customer to assess any potential unsafe ride and provide assistance as required,” the statement added.
Instances of ride-hailing app drivers taking detours and many allegations coming up about the molestation of women in various Indian cities have raised many concerns about the safety of the passengers, especially women.
The project will allow Ola to track all live trips across multiple cities and will help the company to reach out to the passenger in an immediate manner in case of any route diversions or mid-way stops, the company said.
To enhance the system’s performance, the company said that it was working with the respective state governments to mark unsafe routes on its maps to include it into the monitoring platform.
“Through projects like the Guardian, we believe in leveraging technology to improve the overall safety of rides across the transportation industry,” the company’s Vice President for Business Excellence and Safety Ankur Agrawal said in the statement.
The firm is aiming to make both the roads and rides much safer for all its customers and drivers with the use of the new technology, Agarwal added.
Apart from that, it would be worth to note, that a few months ago, Ola has come up with its new technology-powered selfie authentication, wherein drivers are required to validate their identity by taking a selfie and sharing the same with Ola team through the app and this would deter impersonators from driving the car instead of the driver through the platform.
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