Uber expands safety features in India with ambulance support, Record My Ride feature
These new safety-related features were announced at the company’s annual Uber Surakshit safety conference held in New Delhi.
Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari onstage at the Uber Surakshit safety conference. (Express Image) Uber India has announced an expansion of its safety toolkit with the launch of encrypted video recording, ambulance assistance, in-app safety reminders, and other features aimed at making rides on its platform safer for both passengers and drivers.
The ride-hailing giant’s ‘Record My Ride’ feature has been updated with opt-in video recording that activates automatically on all trips once enabled, with recordings being encrypted on-device and decrypt-able only by Uber upon a safety report. Earlier, the feature only came with an audio recording option.
The company also said that its 24×7 safety line will now include ambulance assistance which can be requested by riders when medical attention is required. The average dispatch time of an ambulance is expected to be less than 15 minutes, as per Uber. It has partnered with medical logistics provider Dial 4242 to integrate ambulance assistance directly within its platform. Riders can now customise, manage, and mandate their own unique trip-verification PINs as part of a new ‘Set Your Own Pin’ feature on Uber.
These new features were announced at the company’s annual Uber Surakshit safety conference held in New Delhi on Tuesday, June 30. Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari was the chief guest of the event, with outgoing Uber India and South Asia President Prabhjeet Singh, head of safety operations Sooraj Nair, and other company executives in attendance. Singh is leaving Uber to join OpenAI as its first managing director for India from September this year.
Recounting a personal incident, Gadkari said, “In 2001, I survived a serious road accident on the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border. Our vehicle was badly damaged when it collided with a stationary truck, but a tire on the truck prevented it from going further, saving our lives.”
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari tests Uber’s Helmet Verification feature in the demo zone at the annual Uber Surakshit safety conference in New Delhi. (Image: Uber)
Gadkari said that human behaviour was the biggest challenge to road safety in India. “People continue to drive on the wrong side, ignore basic traffic rules and even cross busy roads carelessly with children. This mindset has to change,” the minister added. Highlighting recent efforts to ensure road safety in India, he noted that the central government has identified accident-prone black spots and landslide-prone stretches across the country, and has undertaken improvement works at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore.
He said that efforts are also being made to ensure international-standard road engineering, including proper signage, lane markings, and underpasses.
Stating that safety has no finish line, Uber India’s Prabhjeet Singh said, “Sometimes, doing the right thing for safety means making decisions that may seem difficult for business or growth in the short term. But safety has to come first. Today’s users expect transparency, accountability, instant support and safety to be built into the app, not treated as an afterthought.”
“When we introduce a new safety feature, it often becomes the benchmark for the industry,” he added.
Uber India on Tuesday also announced the rollout of in-app reminders prompting drivers to avoid typing while driving and encouraging them to wear their seatbelts. This builds on Uber’s existing features such as helmet selfie verification and in-app helmet reminders. Uber riders can further customise certain aspects of these features in the app’s settings based on their safety preferences.
RideCheck, 24×7 Safety Line, Safety Preferences, Phone and Address Anonymisation are some of the features that have already been available on the platform.
“What feels innovative today becomes expected tomorrow. That’s exactly how safety should evolve. Our belief is simple: safety innovation should become the industry’s baseline, not remain a differentiator. Our industry-first safety features and partnerships highlight our commitment to continually raise the bar. As expectations evolve, we hope the industry will rise up to meet them,” Sooraj Nair, head of safety operations, Uber India & South Asia, said.
The Uber Surakshit conference also featured panel discussions with government officials, partners, and industry stakeholders on key issues including road safety, the safety of teenagers and senior citizens, gig worker welfare, and women’s safety.
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