Durban — A newly-introduced audio trip recording safety feature in South Africa will empower both driver and passenger, enhancing transparency and accountability while on trips on an e-hailing service provider, Bolt.
Bolt is introducing a new feature to its in-app safety toolkit for drivers and passengers to initiate an audio recording of their trip within the app, offering a solution in situations where they may feel unsafe during the trip.
Takura Malaba, regional manager, East and Southern Africa at Bolt, explains: “We continuously develop safety features. The audio trip recording feature is the newest addition to our in-app safety toolkit for our Bolt community to use if they’re ever feeling uncomfortable during a ride.”
He added that when necessary, the recorded audio can be easily retrieved by Bolt’s customer support team, facilitating swift and efficient handling of safety-related concerns.
Since inception, South Africa’s e-hailing industry has been tainted by incidents of violent attacks, and in some instances, drivers being hijacked or killed.
There was at one time an online petition that urged Bolt to verify and vet drivers.
Over the past few years, e-hailing drivers and operators have held nationwide protests, urging the government to intervene in the increasing incidents of crimes they are subjected to at the hands of criminals and rival metered taxi operators.
South African women have also been sharing their experiences of alleged sexual harassment and abuse at the hands of e-hailing drivers, urging more stringent vetting processes for e-hailing drivers.
According to Bolt, with the new audio trip recording feature, users can press the recording button in the app, which can be activated only when their Bolt trip is in progress.
Bolt’s audio feature comes after Uber South Africa introduced its audio recording feature last September, to improve evidence collected on the safety cases that are reported by riders and drivers, the company said at the time.
In April, Bolt joined forces with the Automobile Association as its new emergency response service provider, amid mounting calls for the e-hailing app to improve its security. The system shares smartphone GPS co-ordinates with the police or emergency services, which can be dispatched to the user’s location without a phone call.
However, some drivers previously noted that the in-app security features does not work as intended, and is more focused on protecting Bolt riders than driver partners.
Other recently added safety features on the Bolt app include a driver selfie-verification feature to increase passenger safety by combating driver impersonation, and trip-sharing for real-time location-sharing with friends and family.
Bolt notes the audio feature’s initial launch and testing will be limited to specific cities across South Africa, requiring users to have the most recent version of the Bolt app installed to access it.
“Crimes against everyone, including female ride-hailing drivers continue to be a national issue of great concern, and the safety of passengers and drivers using Bolt platform is of utmost importance to us,” said Malaba.
He said Bolt offers free counselling to drivers and passengers following any traumatic incident while using the platform, through their partner Oaksure and Bolt Trip Protection, at no cost to cover emergency medical expenses, permanent disability and death caused by an incident while on a Bolt trip.
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