Uber is committed to safety no matter how you ride. Our continued investments in technology aim to help put safety at the heart of everything we do. And as a multimodal platform, we are positioned to help improve safety across all modes. 

Earlier this year, we announced we were piloting a new road safety feature, Bike Lane Alerts,  to understand how we could promote the safety of people on bikes and scooters via the Uber app. We saw an opportunity to help improve safety for all road users by combining technology and education across our platform.

We heard positive feedback from Uber riders, driver-partners, and people who bike that this feature was a great step toward improving bike safety. After a successful pilot in five cities, we are thrilled to announce Bike Lane Alerts is now live across more than 200 cities and 30 countries around the world. 

With Bike Lane Alerts, riders receive notifications when their upcoming drop-off is near a bike lane or along a bike route, reminding them to look before opening the door. In the last six months, we’ve sent millions of notifications, in nearly 50 languages, to riders to watch for people on bikes and scooters. Whether you’re riding with Uber in Sao Paulo or Montreal, or Austin, you’ll now get a contextual notification any time you’re going to be dropped off along a bike route. 

 

From pilot to global rollout: 

When first developing this product, we started by utilizing publicly available mapping data to pinpoint where bike lanes and shared roads were located in the pilot cities of  New York City, San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.  

As we research and develop safety features, we are focused on building products that can scale around the world and help address safety concerns with ridesharing in each region we operate in. After just a few short months of engagement from riders, drivers, and safety experts, our team of engineers utilized our mapping capabilities to efficiently collect data to help scale out this feature to expand it around the world.

Bike Safety Commitment:

As part of our bike safety commitment, we recently announced a partnership with the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)  to provide important road safety tips to bicycle delivery partners using Uber Eats. As Uber Eats continues to grow, more people are choosing to deliver by bicycle, particularly in urban areas. 

Using feedback from bicycle delivery partners, GHSA developed a series of top safe riding tips. The tips feature information on safe road positioning and how to safely operate and maintain a bicycle. By sharing GHSA’s easily-digestible information we hope that this information will help provide bicycle delivery partners with the knowledge and skills needed to stay safe when delivering with a bicycle. 

At Uber, we will continue investing in technology that can help improve safety, and we will continue  working with bicycle advocates and road safety experts to do our part in helping make the streets safe for everyone. 

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