In Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin: Uber allows rides only with female drivers

Berlin. Women on the ride-hailing platform Uber can now choose to be driven exclusively by a female driver in several major cities. Uber aims to increase women's sense of safety, especially at night, the company announced. They will not pay a surcharge for a ride with a female driver. They simply need to indicate their gender in the app.

Another option will be the option to at least prefer to be driven by a woman rather than a man. "With our new options, women now have the choice of who they take from A to B," said Uber Germany CEO Christoph Weigler.

This should also improve the sense of security for female drivers. They can also choose to receive requests exclusively from women. "This should help further increase the attractiveness of the job of female driver," it said.

In fact, the proportion of female drivers on the Uber platform is currently extremely low. This could lead to a somewhat longer time for a ride to be arranged by women for women, Uber further stated. The company does not operate its own vehicle fleets. Instead, it arranges rides with rental car companies that also employ the drivers.

The service will initially be available only in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich as part of a pilot phase. Uber already introduced this option in Paris last year.

Uber isn't alone in offering this service. Since April, Berlin has had a ride-hailing service called G-Cars, which specializes exclusively in rides by women for women—although so far it only has a few cars.

A few years ago, the former German government published a comprehensive study that showed, among other things, that women feel significantly less safe in public than men, especially at night. "More than half of the women surveyed avoid certain places or means of transport at night to protect themselves from crime," the Interior Ministry stated at the time.

This has led to debates in Berlin, among other places, about the safety of women on public transport. For example, Antje Kapek, a Green Party member of the Berlin House of Representatives, called for the establishment of special subway areas for women only a few months ago.

The proposal was prompted, among other things, by a rape on a Berlin subway in spring 2024. "This is not the only reason to say that we need more protection for women so that everyone feels safe on public transport," Kapek said at the time. Thousands of people have since signed a petition for public transport in the capital.

RND/dpa