Our team, consisting of all female college students, felt unsafe as we were walking home in the dark. We were also tired and would have loved to call an Uber or Lyft to drive us home, but we felt even more uneasy about using a rideshare app so late at night. With Uber receiving 3,824 reports of sexual assault and misconduct from 2019 to 2020, according to their US safety report, which included 141 incidents of rape, none of us were willing to take such a risk. Ideally, there would be a rideshare platform that could be thoroughly trusted. Our solution is SAFR (pronounced safer), which stands for Safe and Friendly Rides. SAFR is a community-oriented rideshare platform that prioritizes safety, especially for women.

To ensure safety for riders and drivers, SAFR is restricted so that only students with a college-affiliated email can sign up. This allows users to feel more at ease when using the app, as others in the community are somewhat "familiar". If someone who is not a college student attempts to sign up, they will be notified that they are unable to do so. If the user is a college student, they can continue and provide some demographic information about their school year and gender identity to enhance driver-rider pairings, which will be done randomly to ensure utmost safety for both parties. Neither the driver nor the rider will be able to choose their match. Next, the user selects their school and then enters their email to get their account verified. Once the user is verified, they can get started!

To find a ride, a user can first input their destination. They can also have the option to turn on our special feature, “DriveHer,” which offers the ability to be matched with a female driver. This feature is exclusive to female users, so they can have an extra layer of safety during their ride. Once they confirm a location, the user can select any SAFR based on arrival time, price, and number of passengers. Once they’re matched with a driver, the user can see the license plate and car model of their driver, as well as an option to view the driver’s profile to learn more about them and ease any possible anxiety about the ride or driver. They would also have the ability to cancel the ride if they feel uneasy about the driver.

During the ride, a map will display the user’s current location en route to the destination, with an estimated time of arrival. There will also be an “I feel unsafe” button, which will call 911 after the user confirms, as a safety precaution.

Lastly, after the ride is over, the user can rate their driver, which will contribute to the driver’s profile so that other riders can gain insight about them in the future.

SAFR is an IOS app built using React Native and Expo. SAFR was written in TypeScript and JSX was used to define user interfaces within React Native components. Expo's map API was implemented into the application.