8A - Solving the Problem


Selected Opportunity:
There have been many incidents where a transportation company, such as Uber, has had drivers who have been a predator to his or her rider. There is an opportunity to prevent this from happening so frequently.

Product/Service:
I would like to introduce a service for transportation companies, such as Uber and Lyft, to improve the safety of their service. The service would be adamant about potential drivers requiring a nationwide FBI criminal background check, along with fingerprints on file. As of now, Uber only requires drivers to have a working car. While Uber claims to run DMV criminal background checks, many of their drivers were convicted of assault, battery, burglary, and reckless driving. Evidently, a chunk of Uber’s drivers are not completely reliable. My service would have an app where it connects to the rider. It would show them the credibility of the driver and if they have a clear background. This app would connect to the Lyft and Uber app to make it easily accessible to the riders.

Comments

  1. Nick HeikkinenSeptember 21, 2019 at 9:16 AM

    Nicolette,

    I really like your idea. I've heard of safety issues with Uber/Lyft far too many times. Everyone should feel safe when using these services. I think your proposed service would drastically lessen issues regarding safety that we're currently going through. I hate seeing stories on the news about kidnappings, assault, etc involving uber and lyft. I feel the hardest part will be developing the app correctly/marketing it. Other than that, the idea is there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haonan WangSeptember 21, 2019 at 11:06 PM

    Nicolette,
    I truly think this is a meaningful topic, and we should pay more attention to it. These transportation companies should be more severe on the background check of their drivers. Besides that, I think they should have a GPS tracking system on each vechicle. Moreover, I believe that the emergency stop function should be installed. Therefore, we can prevent many tragedy in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Minseok MunSeptember 23, 2019 at 11:15 AM

    Nicolette,
    I feel that this problem is definitely something that requires more attention of all the people that use all kinds of taxi services. However, I feel that it could make great impact to the business model of Uber and Lyft. One strong advantage that they had was that anyone could become a driver and that anyone could become a customer. However, with very strong regulation, this strength could easily disappear.

    ReplyDelete

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