Safe public transport for women in Pakistan is still more of a dream than a reality despite many ride hailing applications who cater to women on a daily basis. In the past there have been many incidents with Careem and Uber drivers where the lives and safety of women have been put at risk, with too many attempts at kidnapping.
Therefore, in order to provide safe and convenient conveyance to women, Hira Batool Rizvi, a young entrepreneur has come up with a way to provide a safe mode of travel to facilitate female mobility. With She’Kab, she aims to not only provide a safe and reasonably priced transportation service for women but also create employment opportunities for a vast number of individuals.
She’Kab is a subscription-based ride-sharing platform that uses intelligent clustering to connect riders with drivers and commuters through their platform. Through the app, the riders can commute through a common cab and divide the fare between them on a monthly basis. Inspired by models of Uber, Lyft, and AirBnb while studying at Georgia Tech she decided to come up with a safe taxi service for women, by women.
In 2017She’Kab managed to get international recognition when Hira applied for Shell Tameer Awards and made it to the final top 12 in the Technology Innovation category. Then She’Kab was further nominated through Shell Tameer, for the Shell LiveWIRE Global Top Ten Innovator Awards, and stood out as one of the three Runner-up Prize winners to bag approximately Rs1 million. According to her, the amount has been a savior for the startup as the 50pc of the total amount spent to develop the mobile applications. More drivers and riders started to register through the application and motivated other female drivers to register as a driver.
Speaking about how she came up with the idea to a local newspaper, she said “When I was a student, safe and reliable transportation was my biggest issue. The public transport infrastructure was neither safe nor economical for a student. It also had no provision for female seating, where a 14 seater vehicle would have only two seats reserved for women. At times, when women had to be adjusted in the back with men, they would face harassment.”
Hira first launched the service in Rawalpindi, expanded to Islamabad and is now set to launch She’Kab in Karachi. Moreover, She’Kab drivers have increased from 43 drivers to the current figure of 515 drivers. The currently registered riders have reached 4,500 and business is booming.
