Women Drivers

New York is about to get a new taxi app service – with cabs driven by women for women, according to a report in the New York Times.

Serving New York City, suburban Westchester and Long Island, the latest Uber-like taxi app will be available through an Apple application for smartphones as of Sept. 16, with an Android app to follow. It will be called SheTaxis in the suburbs and SheRides in New York City, due to regulations barring the use of “taxi” in the name.

Women who summon the service will be met by a female driver wearing a hot pink pashmina scarf.

Currently, only 1 percent of New York City’s nearly 52,000 drivers of cruising yellow cabs are women, and only 5 percent of the city’s nearly 60,000 drivers of for-hire limousines and luxury sedans are female.

You might think this is a new idea, but it’s not.  Women-only transport can be found in many cities around the world.

India has its own women-driven fleet of taxis – also called SheTaxi – as does New Zealand.

Japan has had women-only train carriages on and off for more than 100 years, while similar female-only public transportation programs exist in Indonesia, India, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan and Iran.