Uber Is Using Smartphones Of Drivers And Riders To Detect Accidents

Harin - Sep 19, 2019


Uber Is Using Smartphones Of Drivers And Riders To Detect Accidents

After a year of testing, Uber's new feature called “RideCheck” to detect trip irregularities is now live in the US, with other countries soon to follow.

Last year, Uber announced a new feature called RideCheck, which is integrated into the Uber App. The feature’s main role is to detect trip irregularities.

After one year of testing, RideCheck is now officially released in the U.S and will be expanded to other countries soon.

RideCheck’s working mechanism is based on a smartphone’s GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer as well as other sensors to detect incidents during a trip like a car accident or a vehicle’s unexpected long stop.

Uber-new-RideCheck-feature
After one year of testing, RideCheck is now officially released in the U.S and will be expanded to other countries soon.

After analyzing the data, the system will notify both the customer and the driver if it detects anything unusual. For example, if the system detects that the smartphone of the driver or the customer falling, it will show a notification on the smartphone’s screen asking about the safety of the user. Simultaneously, the system will show a list of prepared questions, like calling 911 or Uber.

If Uber confirms that an accident has happened, it will prompt the rider to call 911. A team of safety operators of Uber may also contact to ensure the rider’s safety.

According to Uber, the feature will mostly collect data from the sensors on the driver’s smartphone, instead of the rider. The reason is that the Uber app is used more frequently by drivers than riders.

To prevent false positives from happening, like a dropped phone, machine learning is used to calculate different factors besides the collected data from a smartphone’s sensors. Both drivers and riders, when receive false positives from the system, can verify their safety. This also helps RideCheck gets improved over time.

In fact, using a smartphone to detect and deal with vehicle crashes is not something new. Previously, several startups or tech firms like Zendrive has researched and developed a similar solution. Another system called Onstar from General Motors use the sensors on the cars to detect crashes and alert the authorities automatically.

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