DETROIT – Uber has recently announced the selection of the Detroit area, along with San Francisco and Los Angeles, to launch a pilot program called “Women Rider Preferences”, which allows female users to request rides driven exclusively by women.

Uber Vice President Camiel Irving said the pilot program will be launched “in the coming weeks” with the goal of enhancing women’s safety and sense of security, at a time when the company is facing a wave of sexual harassment lawsuits across the United States.

The company stated that the program is designed to give female riders more confidence, options and flexibility. The new feature works when requesting an Uber ride, where the user can tap the “Women Drivers” option. Riders can also pre-book a ride with a female driver.

A rider can also set a preference to always choose a female driver in the app’s settings, increasing the chances that her request will be fulfilled.

Irving noted that confirming an Uber driver’s gender is done through the driver screening process and partially based on the driver’s name. She pointed out that launching the pilot program in the U.S. had been on hold for nearly six years after it was first tested in Saudi Arabia in 2019 — about a year after women were first allowed to drive in the Kingdom. Irving added that Uber’s decision to introduce “Women Rider Preferences” in the U.S. was based on feedback and experiences shared by female riders.

It is worth noting that Uber’s competitor Lyft launched its own women-focused program in 2023, called Women+ Connect.

That same year, thousands of lawsuits filed against Uber by women alleging sexual assault and harassment by male drivers were consolidated into an ongoing class action lawsuit accusing Uber of negligence, currently before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

These incidents span many years, dating back to the launch of Uber’s services in 2010. The company released its first U.S. safety report in 2018, detailing more than 6,000 alleged sexual assault incidents during 2017 and 2018, and noting that 99.4 percent of the reports accused drivers of assaulting female passengers. In 2020, Uber released a second report, which documented 3,864 sexual assault cases in 2019 and 2020.