Uber has today announced a critical upgrade to the SOS Alert feature it introduced a couple of months back. While the in-app SOS Alert earlier connected you directly with Police Control rooms, tapping the same button will now also feed PCRs with critical information regarding your Uber ride. The feature is ready to be rolled out across all Indian Cities.
Introduced in February this year, Uber’s in-app SOS button, when tapped, automatically connects you to Police Emergency Number, i.e.100. However, no driver information was sent to the Police by the system, thus making things difficult for a rider in low signal reception area.
Starting today though, Uber’s in-app SOS button will also send complete driver information related to your ride, including other critical trip information. The information sent by Uber’s back-end will pop-up on Police Control Room maps, thus allowing for swifter, more targeted action in case of any untoward incident.
The instantaneous alert contains critical trip information including exact vehicle location (tracked via GPS). This information is then projected on a dedicated screen in the control room of local law enforcement, set up by Uber’s safety experts. This latest tech upgrade enables the police to act within seconds of being alerted in the rare event of an emergency, when every second counts.
Uber says that it has successfully tested the system in Kolkata, which by far has been the friendliest city for the U.S.-HQed cab-hailing service within India. Kolkata is currently the only Indian city which passed an order regulating on-demand transportation technology aggregators as technology companies under the IT Act, 2000.
