To make roads as safe as houses and women as free as birds..

Experiments with my favourite challenge

Challenge statement : 

Women safety has become a perpetual issue in India, to the extent that women have now accepted this as the harsh reality of their life. 

There is a strong need to empower women, to make them feel safe, to make them independent and live the life they actually want.  At the outset, I feel the immediate need to solve the problem of safe travelling for women at night. In fact, this has now become my favourite challenge in life- to make roads as safe as houses and women as free as birds. 

Idea and potential business model : 

Women feel safe and independent in their houses because they are surrounded by known and trustworthy people, their family members. Even in the presence of extended family or a group of friends, we feel relatively safe due to sense of community and belonging. The next natural question is – how can this sense of community be fostered while travelling? 

If we broaden our horizons a bit, we will identify a larger community which can collectively solve this problem- the community of females across this nation. The idea is to let women travellers choose an option of riding with a women cab driver in apps like Uber, Ola, etc.

A potential business model is creating an academy for training women in driving and martial arts(for self-defense) and partnering with cab aggregators like Uber and Ola to provide the with trained female drivers. In future, this could be extended to create own cab service catering to females only.

BEFORE : 

Fig 1 : Before Storyboard

AFTER : 

Fig 2: After storyboard

Using this feature the girls don’t have to depend on their family or male friends and also feel safe in the presence of another girl.

Looks like prototype :

Fig 3: Self defense and driving classes prototype

Fig 4 : Partnership with App aggregators like Uber,Ola

 Fig 5: Uber Customer Interface

Design of a 1-day low-cost experiment : 

1.     What is the experiment?

The experiment will test the idea on a small set of people travelling to and fro from Bangalore Airport. 

Step 1 : Introduce my 5 closest girl friends who know how to drive to this concept and get them on board on the experiment. 

Step 2 : Borrow 5 cars from my friends in campus or rent from Zoom cars

On the day when PGP1 final exams are over, many students travel to the airport in the evening. 

Step 3 : Approach the PGP1 girls, introduce them to the concept and ask him if they will be willing to drive with my friends instead of booking an Ola/Uber. Show them the profile of the driver containing : 

·      Driver license

·      Experience in number of years

·      2 examples of trips where they have responsibly driven their friends and family in a tough situation like hills or long distance travel(>100km) and in high traffic cities

·      Self-defense training[if any]

Step 4 : If the girl is convinced, ride her to the Airport with complete Uber-like experience- navigation on google maps, option of playing music, and ask for the contact details in the end to send the feedback form. 

·      Name

·      Email ID

·      Contact number

Collect ride charges- the students can pay voluntarily from 10% to 50% of a normal uber ride. 

Step 5 : Send the feedback form within 5 mins of ending the ride. 

Link to feedback form : https://forms.gle/vyt5zRqAJmei1qQS8

Step 6 : At the airport, Approach girls who are walking towards the Uber/Ola pickup zones. Introduce them to your concept and establish your credentials(example saying you are IIMB students, and showing the profile) and ask them if they will be willing to instead take a ride with my friends. 

Step 7 : Repeat steps 5 and 6. 

2.     What hypothesis will it test?

Women travelers post 8PM will choose to ride with female drivers over male Uber Ola drivers with no apprehension of female driving negative stereotype. 

3.     What is the cost of the experiment?

	Base	Optimistic	Pessimistic
Fuel Cost	5*(100-30)%*500  = Rs. 1750	5*(100-100)%*500  = Rs. 0	5*(100-10)%*500  = Rs. 2250
Man hours cost	Opportunity cost for my time + 5 other friends

e

Assumptions : 

·      Fuel charges are Rs.500 from IIMB to Airport

·      Normal uber ride cost from IIMB to Airport = Rs.1000

·      Base case – Rider pays 30% of normal uber ride i.e. Rs. 300

·      Optimistic case – Rider pays 50% of the normal uber ride i.e. Rs. 500

·      Pessimistic case – rider pays 10% of the normal uber ride i.e. Rs 100

4.     How will you measure success?

I will record the following 3 parameters : 

·      % of known girls(in campus) willing to test drive

·      % of unknown girls(at airport) willing to test drive

·      % of girls in the feedback form : 

o   saying “Yes” to this feature 

o   ready to accept extra 10 mins of waiting time

o   ready to pay 1.25X the price

Experiment will be success if the above % are >50%.

Next steps : 

If the experiment is the success, I would : 

·      A detailed survey to gauge the demand & apprehensions

·      Present my findings, prototype to my friends in Uber and discuss if the idea is feasible and gauge their interest