Bolt has committed to invest Ksh 14 billion over the next 3 years to raise awareness of its safety features as well as introduce measures to help prevent safety cases before they happen. Previously, Bolt faced a number of safety incidents and some riders were harassed by drivers and the app being labeled as unsafe. The ride hailing app wants this to change and hopes it will communicate the changes effectively to its users.
Bolt has also revealed that its safety team has over 500 people who come come together to tackle some of the most complex challenges in ride-hailing. The team’s core, based in Bolt’s Tallinn HQ, includes Safety Experts specially trained in product development, engineering, and operations.
Linda Ndungu, General Manager at Bolt said, “At Bolt, we take our responsibility to ensure the safety of our platform very seriously. With the Sh14 billion committed over three years to safety, we recognise that this requires an end-to-end approach across our business in Kenya. That’s why The Bolt Safety Team of over 500 specialists from across the world will focus their efforts on product development, support, and scaling preventative measures to stop safety cases before they happen in that time. We’ll also continue to raise awareness of our safety tools with educational campaigns like the current ‘Bolt Safety Team’ campaign running in Kenya, to raise awareness of the in-app features that we know can help prevent cases.”
Bolt will be adding a new trip verification feature as part of its suite of safety tools. The company hopes this will encourage mutual trust between driver partners and riders. Part of this verification will include a unique four-digit code to help match riders and driver partners.
The ride hailing app also plans to invest in upgrading some of its existing features like Ride Check to proactively detect if a trip’s route unexpectedly changes or takes longer than expected to finish. It will also introduce a Trusted Contacts feature to ensure Ride Check notifications are escalated to a friend or loved one if needed.
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