SUMMARY
Bengaluru police will get real-time access to customer information
Earlier this week, Uber launched a similar feature in Delhi
Ola also partnered with Hyderabad police last month
After partnering with Hyderabad police to ensure customer safety, Indian cab-hailing service Ola has now partnered with the Bengaluru Police for the same. Ola has now integrated its in-app emergency button with the Bengaluru Police’s Suraksha app.
Bhaskar Rao, the commissioner of Bengaluru City Police said, “Bengaluru City Police now offers great convenience and ensures the citizens of Bengaluru a secure ride-hailing experience by integrating Suraksha app with Ola application.”
Last week, Uber tied up with Delhi Police to add live tracking and emergency calling features that connect to the official Himmat app.
With the new feature, Ola customers can directly call Bengaluru police using the app, and the police also get real-time access to the customer’s information — name, address, emergency contact details, and GPS coordinates. Besides that, the police can also view driver details such as contact number, vehicle number and model and GPS coordinates. Such features enable a quicker response time from the police.
Ola Bulks Up On Safety Features
In January 2020, Ola Cabs, along with Tora Cabs and Prydo, had entered a similar partnership with Hyderabad. For this, Telangana police integrated patrol vehicles with private cab services through the Hawk Eye app. The police wanted to address the safety needs of women passengers through this initiative.
“Once a commuter, especially women in distress, presses the ‘Emergency Button’ in the app, the message will be transmitted to the Hawk Eye app of the police through a back-end operational workflow. This will enable passing on the live location and other details of the cab to the police attending the emergency services in addition to the control room of the cab operator,” said Anitha, Inspector of the information technology cell of Telangana Police.
“Once the information is received, the police will be able to respond immediately to reach the commuter in distress by continuously tracking the movement of the vehicle on the geo-tagged map,” Anitha added.
In December 2019, Ola also announced that it will deploy a special fleet of ‘safety scouts’ and ‘quick response teams’ across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata for New Year’s eve.
Ola also added that it had collaborated with the police authorities across cities to support their on-ground efforts. The company clarified that women’s safety is its top priority, therefore, the ‘quick response team’ will also have lady police constables on-board to support the existing police fleet and attend to any SOS calls from women.
