Uber is starting service allowing women to choose female drivers, riders

Uber said it's starting a program to allow women passengers to pick female drivers or share a ride with other women, with pilots slated to begin in the next few weeks in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit.

In a Wednesday statement, Uber said that women customers will see an option called "women drivers" in the app. If the wait time for a woman driver is longer than they would like, they can pick another ride — presumably with a male driver — for a quicker pickup, the company said.

"Across the U.S., women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips," Uber said in its statement.

However, longer wait times could be an issue for women who want to get picked up by a female driver, given that Uber has said about 1 in 5 of its drivers are women. Customers can also pre-book rides with women drivers, the company said Wednesday.

"That is what we expect to learn more about during this pilot. Riders may experience longer wait times if women drivers are unavailable or further away. If so, they can choose to wait, reserve a ride with a woman driver for a later time, or choose a ride with any available driver that may not match their preference," an Uber spokesperson said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.

Riders can also set a preference for women drivers in their Uber settings, which will boost the chances of being paired with a female driver, although such a match isn't guaranteed, the company said.

Likewise, Uber drivers who are women can also request trips with female riders, including during peak hours when they can earn more, the company said. Women drivers can toggle the "women rider preference" option in their app settings to get paired with female customers, it added.

Uber has offered similar programs in other countries, rolling out its "women rider preference" in Saudi Arabia in 2019, after women were given the right to drive in that country. "Since then, the feature has expanded to 40 countries, completing over 100 million trips," the company said.