- Sri Lanka gets first all-female ride-hailing service
By Uwin Lugoda
The harassment of women in transport has been reported across the globe, with even international e-hailing platforms like Uber being subjected to headlines like “103 Uber drivers accused of sexual assault or abuse”. This has led to a slew of women-only cab services, in order to ensure the safety of women riders.
Services like ForShe, TaxShe, and SheCab are few services that exclusively use women drivers with the goal of empowering women, as well as providing them with safer travel options. These companies have gone on to be widely received by their respective communities and each reports fleets numbering in the thousands.
ForShe is the oldest of the three, having been established in 2007, and has tried to create a business model where each of these women drivers becomes an entrepreneur in her own right. The women drivers own their cars, and apart from a fixed salary of INR 5,000, their take-home income, which depends on the number of kilometres they drive, can go as high as INR 18,000 a month.
The company also partnered with Orix, an Indian auto infrastructure services company, in 2010, which provided the space for a training academy for the women drivers and offices. ForShe went on to make an annual revenue of INR 6 million a year from the taxi service and the academy in 2010, and managed to double it by 2013 while also increasing their fleet to 2,500 vehicles.
Similar to ForShe, Sri Lanka now has its own women-powered taxi service thanks to Deegenics, a local technology company which launched “Pink Drives”, a premium chauffeur service for women and children in Colombo.
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Deegenics Founder Shohan Kulasuriya stated that the service which launched last week (18) is set to be an all-women driver fleet which not only empowers Sri Lankan women, but provides safety for both women and children.
Kulasuriya stated that he came up with the idea when looking to help a close friend whose husband had just passed away. He explained that she had two kids, with very little funds to raise them, and turned to other ride-hailing platforms for work, but faced difficulties moving around.
“After seeing this, I thought of providing a platform in which she can chauffeur only women and children, and put a post out on my personal social media accounts. This received a lot of positive responses, and a lot of people started using the service. Then, we started to receive request from other women to join as chauffeurs.”
He stated after seeing this demand and its potential, they decided to launch a platform which will have a positive impact on society. They first started developing for the service in late May, and within four months, they managed to build a mobile app and platform in house.
Kulasuriya stated that the app is there for both Android and iOS users, whether they are passengers or drivers. He stated that the backend panel will be connected to the admin, where everything will be monitored.
He went on to state that the app will also house an emergency button for both the driver and rider, which will directly connect them to their family members. He added that they also have people who monitor the vehicles throughout the day.
As for the drivers, Kulasuriya stated that once Deegenics receives their applications, they personally interview the drivers and handpick them, after which they go through a period of training before bring them on board.
“Currently, we are launching with 25 women, who will be working both fulltime and part time to chauffeur people around Colombo. We will also not have any three-wheelers in this service; instead, we will have vehicles that range from budget to luxury.”
He stated that the only challenge they faced was getting women chauffeurs to come on board, since most of them had families and other responsibilities to tend to. He explained that they decided to launch Pink Drives to be able to show potential women drivers success stories and the market they are serving, so that they will be inspired to join as well.
Kulasuriya stated that one of their main goals is to provide women with this opportunity and make it safer for them to work as chauffeurs and earn an additional income.
“We want to give women a safer platform to travel in and help empower women by opening up more avenues like this. We are going to initially focus on providing this to Colombo and its suburbs, and according to the demand, we will move on to other areas, but our goal is to eventually reach all the big cities.”