Uber and representatives from the Singapore Police Force, Land Transport Authority, Public Transport Council, the Ministry of Home Affairs, as well as others come together for the first Uber Safety Lab.

At Uber, we’re dedicated to ensuring safe rides and contributing to road safety. Using technology, we’ve incorporated several safety features into every journey – before, during, and after every trip.

But we want to do more.

To continuously improve safety among riders and driver-partners using the Uber app, we held our first Safety Lab with key stakeholders from the Singapore Police Force, Land Transport Authority, Public Transport Council, the Ministry of Home Affairs, as well as others. The Safety Lab was designed to share and discuss ways we can work together with all relevant parties to improve safety for everyone using Uber in Singapore.

“We are excited by the positive response to the Uber Safety Lab. It’s important for us to have an open and fruitful dialogue to share our technology-driven approach to safety, at the same time, get feedback directly from multiple government stakeholders on what matters to them. Safety is a priority for all of us and it’s crucial to cooperate with each other. We are encouraged by this engagement and look forward to hosting the next Safety Lab soon,” said Tricia Frank, Head of Government Relations and Public Policy, Uber Singapore.

During the session, Suyash Sarwate, Head of Safety Operations for Southeast Asia and Dr. Nadia Anderson, Global Head of Road Safety Policy, shared Uber’s approach to safety for riders and driver-partners, highlighting innovations and processes to create accountability and transparency that was not previously possible without smartphone technology. Additionally, Uber has pioneered technologies such as Real Time  ID Check (which prompts drivers to share a selfie before going online to help ensure the driver using the app matches the account on file); GPS tracking for every trip; giving riders the ability to share their trip information and ETA in real-time with loved ones; as well as a two-way feedback feature so that both riders and driver-partners can give feedback on any trip. Such features allow Uber to respond quickly to any incidents and provide authorities with the necessary information to assist them in their investigations.

Dr. Anderson shared, “The Safety Lab is a great way for Uber to better understand the key safety concerns and priorities for our stakeholders in Singapore. Through such engagements, we are able to share constructive feedback with our teams in HQ, and we hope to continue to create product features that matter.”

The Safety Lab led to positive feedback from the attendees:

Traffic Police Officer, Teo Hong Yi shared “The Traffic Police strives to make the roads in Singapore safer for all. Through the Safety Lab forum, we had the opportunity to understand more about Uber’s efforts in promoting road safety and interact with other stakeholders on how we can work together to make the roads safe. We look forward to future engagements with Uber.”

Following this first Safety Lab, Uber intends to work more closely with key stakeholders to continually improve its safety features for riders and driver-partners. Tricia concluded, “Our technology allows us to focus on safety in ways that simply were not possible before the Internet — let alone smartphones, which are still a young invention. But safety is not a static process; we are constantly working to develop new technologies and practices for improving safety for everyone using Uber to move around Singapore.”

For more information on Uber’s safety for riders and drivers, please refer to Uber’s website.