The ride-hailing services like Uber and Ola have been already providing the safety features over the apps, and now for the first time, Google Maps is going to introduce a safety feature for the Indian users. The new safety feature is called ‘Stay Safer’ and will be another India-first feature.
Though people are already able to track their path through the Google Map, the new Stay Safer feature, will notify the users if they are on the right path or not, while riding a taxi or an autorickshaw. The users will also be able to share the live status of their trip, similarly as they can using an Uber and Ola app, with their family members or friends.
“Through our extensive research across India, we found that a lot of people limit their mobility due to safety-related concerns. To address this, we are launching another India-first feature that will deliver a more relevant and reliable experience to our users. Our new ‘Stay Safer’ feature on Google Maps will alert users who are travelling in taxis, auto-rickshaws etc. in case their vehicle goes off route, giving them peace of mind.” said Amanda Bishop, the Product Manager at Google Maps, while announcing the new feature on Wednesday.
How to Use the New Stay Safer Feature on Google Maps
The feature has already been launched for Android, and the users will now be able to see it on the updated Google Map app. To use Stay Safer, the users need to select a destination, where they want to go. Like earlier, the users will get to choose the direction and will see the shortest path to the destination. Now with the ‘Start’ option, they will also be able to see the ‘Stay Safer’ option. Upon clicking the option, they will further see two more options ‘Share Live Trip’ and ‘Get Off-route Alerts’.
By choosing the first option, there will appear multiple options to share the trip status with their contacts, like Hangouts, Whatsapp, Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, etc.
With the ‘Get Off-route Alert’, the users will be able to get the notification on whether they are following the right path or have got off the route. If they will get an off-route notification from Google Maps, they can share their live location with their contacts for any emergency.
The feature is another India-first feature after Google Map recently launched three new India-focussed public transport features including the live train status, bus, auto-rickshaw and public transport total travel time calculated by looking at the live traffic.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.