NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The debut of a livery car service providing women drivers for female passengers in the New York City area has stalled over lack of a sufficient number of drivers, the founder of the service said yesterday.
In a news conference on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan, Stella Mateo, the founder of SheTaxis/SheRides, said the launch of the service, which was scheduled for today, has been delayed until a total of 500 women drivers can be recruited.
Mateo said the service, which will use an Uber-like smartphone app, determined that demand would outstrip the capacity of the 100 female drivers currently available to fulfil requests.
She said the app will not be released until SheTaxis/SheRides has signed on an additional 400 women drivers.
SheTaxis is the name of the service in the New York suburbs, while SheRides is used in the city itself, which has regulations governing the use of “taxi” in a name.
“In the taxi and livery industry, where women comprise less than 3 per cent of drivers but 60 per cent of riders, women’s needs go unmet on either side of the partition,” said Mateo, whose husband Fernando is founder of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers.
Mateo said she hoped the new service, which will feature female drivers wearing hot pink pashmina scarves, would provide safety and convenience to women as well as economic opportunity.
Access to female drivers, she said, would particularly help some Muslim and Orthodox Jewish women whose religious beliefs prohibit them from travelling alone with unrelated men.
She said that encouraging women to drive would also allow them to become small business owners in an industry that has no gender pay gap and also provides flexibility for working mothers.
In order to recruit more women drivers, Mateo said SheTaxis/SheRides will hold a women’s opportunity job fair starting today at its Long Island City offices for seven days a week from 10 am to 8 pm.
