[Aditya]

Taxi operator Meru has introduced Eve, a new service for women in Delhi. Eve taxis are hatchbacks painted pink and white and driven by women wearing pink vests.

Meru claims that after the unfortunate incident last month, in which, a lady passenger was allegedly raped by the driver of a Uber cab, it has been receiving calls from passengers asking for female drivers. Eve taxis have been introduced keeping in mind the safety of women and come equipped with pepper sprays and panic buttons. Additionally, their drivers have been given defence training by the Delhi police, to protect themselves and their passengers. The service has around twenty vehicles plying at the moment.

Ladies can book a Meru Eve cab through the Meru smartphone app, which can be downloaded here, or by dialing 4422 4422.

Meru may introduce Eve cabs in other cities across the country over the coming months.





Source: WSJ

[ghodlur]

Good initiative by Meru considering the present situation of emphasis on women safety. Had seen the launch clips on a news channel few days back. The cars are mostly Maruti Suzuki Ritz which is fairly comfortable for the women drivers. Are these services priced different from the normal Meru service?

[Jeroen]

Good initiative. Little sad as well that such an initiative is necessary.

Jeroen

[rajushank84]

Good idea, hope it comes up in all major cities. Provides double benefit - safety to women on one hand, and also breaking the stereotype that majority of drivers should be women. Hope to see women employed more currently male-dominated occupations, at the same time helping provide safety for other women.

[bhaskar.guru]

It is a great initiative considering the situation in our country but I feel sad that we have come to this situation that the male fraternity can't be trusted.

[bhaskaracs]

Cab companies are expected to make such noises and to be seen doing the right things by the regulators and police. Further, I dont see any strong business reason in doing this (unless they charge at least 30% higher rates) for two reasons:

1) cabs are too few (20?) to be available at a short notice in NCR for women. No woman driver currently in Dwarka will ever drive to Rlw station to fetch a lady passenger.

2) It may not be profitable for for Eve cabs to ferry only lady passengers. As a gentleman i will be wary of being seen inside anything 'pink'. Again, even if they ferry men, there is a big risk of these women drivers becoming easy targets for unruly youth from hinterlands of NCR

If they charge more, this will amount to gender based discrimination. Personally i think it is a bit of a joke - we can get away by running such campaigns in our country with companies trying to sell fear. I will only wait and watch the adoption trends over next six months.

[drmohitg]

This idea is definitely flawed. Even I am left wondering with the same questions as raised above. The biggest problem is that women passengers are not the only ones that are at risk. Even these women drivers will be at grave risks. Who will ensure there safety?

[SchumiFan]

I am not aware of how Meru does its operation, but if it can be hailed only by an app, what's the need to paint it pink? Also how do they ensure that only a women books this cab?

Being very different from the regular cabs it can be easily targetted by miscreants and may end up harming the drivers themselves.

The use of panic buttons and pepper sprays is a good option. 20 is a small number but if the patronage is there, maybe the number will increase in the future.

I remember seeing 'Ladies Special' buses back in Chennai a few years before. Wonder what happened to those. At least 'Ladies only' coaches are still there in the suburban trains.

[Mad Max]

Might as well tie a big floating balloon pointer with the caption "Marginally prepared women inside. Approach with extra care". Pepper spray.. Really?

So, the solution in our country to anything seems only

a) ban the living daylights out of it or
b) seclude it as it's own entity

I just hope this trend succeeds big time as anything that's smaller in scale will either implode or be a terribly attractive target.

Instead of the government increasing steps to build a secure nation with appropriate policing and technology aids, it has quietly passed the buck on to the cab operators. Who in turn, reach out to PR agencies and ask "how do I look good when I am not following the right process?". And this is the answer.

The icing on the cake is the assumption that women drivers are harmless or less harmful than men drivers. Ok then.

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

This idea is definitely flawed. Even I am left wondering with the same questions as raised above. The biggest problem is that women passengers are not the only ones that are at risk. Even these women drivers will be at grave risks. Who will ensure there safety?

Why is it flawed?
Also the initiative is started for addressing the needs to woman passengers who are at risk from their safety point. This initiative is not IMO for male passengers opting for the service, for them regular Meru is available.

Reg your question of the women driver's safety, picking from first post.

Additionally, their drivers have been given defence training by the Delhi police, to protect themselves and their passengers

[puchoo]

Good initiative provided they are willing to invest and scale up on it quickly. Very smart from a business perspective also with respect to riding the wave of fear and apprehension and capitalizing on the huge number of Uber customers who would need to go back to using the other brands.

20 vehicles will get devoured by the number of requests which would be coming in and while it is ,like i said a good initiative, it can only really become really serious and make a difference as the fleet size increases - maybe for Meru the problem is not so much in increasing the fleet size but finding enough women drivers to go along with it , at any rate , in either case they will need to increase coverage.

[Marauder]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

Might as well tie a big floating balloon pointer with the caption "Marginally prepared women inside. Approach with extra care". Pepper spray.. Really?

So, the solution in our country to anything seems only

a) ban the living daylights out of it or
b) seclude it as it's own entity

I just hope this trend succeeds big time as anything that's smaller in scale will either implode or be a terribly attractive target.

Instead of the government increasing steps to build a secure nation with appropriate policing and technology aids, it has quietly passed the buck on to the cab operators. Who in turn, reach out to PR agencies and ask "how do I look good when I am not following the right process?". And this is the answer.

The icing on the cake is the assumption that women drivers are harmless or less harmful than men drivers. Ok then.

Completely

Instead of ensuring that they do not employ rapists and other criminals, these cab operators are trying to gain publicity by introducing these retrograde initiatives. If they want to employ more women drivers, they can do it in the regular service by giving them necessary safety equipment and training.

IIRC, there were pink autos introduced in Gurgaon with similar provisions and they were targeted by the criminals.

Some time back, I also saw a news item about a "Women-only post office". Absolutely ridiculous, are we going to see a women-only city next?

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Why is it flawed?
Also the initiative is started for addressing the needs to woman passengers who are at risk from their safety point. This initiative is not IMO for male passengers opting for the service, for them regular Meru is available.

Reg your question of the women driver's safety, picking from first post.

Flawed only with respect to the safety of the women drivers specially when they are travelling through peripheral regions of NCR where the chances of these crimes are more. 3 day session of self training sounds like a joke to me. Honestly what sort of self training will they be able to learn in 3 days against seasoned criminals like the one involved in Uber case.

[Gansan]

Will there be enough patronage, if they can be hailed by women alone? Are men permited to hail these cabs?

What next, exclusive offices for women?

[saket77]

Originally Posted by Marauder

Completely
Instead of ensuring that they do not employ rapists and other criminals, these cab operators are trying to gain publicity by introducing these retrograde initiatives. If they want to employ more women drivers, they can do it in the regular service by giving them necessary safety equipment and training.
IIRC, there were pink autos introduced in Gurgaon with similar provisions and they were targeted by the criminals.
Some time back, I also saw a news item about a "Women-only post office". Absolutely ridiculous, are we going to see a women-only city next?

In Ranchi, there are pink-autos, run by women for women. They are mostly shared autos plying on few routes. I don't know if this is right or wrong but this segregation of gender is not the way forward for a society like ours which boasts of gender equality. In a way, also gives clue to the fact that the law & order system is proving ineffective to tackle the eve-teasing and other such crimes directed towards the female of our species. So, rather than tackling the law & order situation, we give up the effort to improve and create separate facilities for women. Excellent!

Originally Posted by Marauder

Some time back, I also saw a news item about a "Women-only post office". Absolutely ridiculous, are we going to see a women-only city next?

I would like to bring the Bhartiya Mahila Bank to your notice