Uber announced 2nd edition of Driver Advisory Council
Mumbai: India’s first Driver Advisory Council (DAC), formed to provide gig workers a safe space to discuss issues that impact them deeply and improve their platform experience, has completed a year. The Council is a flagship initiative led by Aapti Institute, a Bengaluru-based think tank, that serves as a third-party Independent Review Board (IRB), in collaboration with Uber, with an aim to create a better two-way dialogue between driver-partners and the platform.
Uber along with the Aapti Institute announced the second cohort of driver partners across cars, auto-rickshaws and motorbikes, who will be part of the Council for a year.
These drivers are from 6 metros including Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai, and represent the interests of tens of thousands of driver partners using the Uber platform. Last year, the Council comprised 58 driver partners who were part of 3 in-person sessions and two online sessions, convened by Aapti between March 2022 and March 2023.
Critical topics discussed during these meetings included earnings, product enhancements, social security, app experience, and safety, among others.
Based on these sessions, and recommendations from Aapti Institute, Uber implemented several changes last year. As per an internal survey of 80,000 driver partners by Uber, 85% of the respondents believed that the changes had a positive impact on their driving experience and 92% drivers wanted DAC to continue.
Aapti Institute unveiled an impact report on the learnings from the Council meetings in its inaugural year. The report highlights key changes introduced by Uber as per the IRB’s recommendations:
Reduction in driver cancellations: The Council meetings helped better understand the issues faced by driver partners that led them to cancel rides.
Subsequently, Uber made the drop-off destination and mode of payment known upfront to driver partners prior to their acceptance of the trip requests. These changes helped driver partners make an informed decision and reduced trip cancellations significantly.
Transparency in driver earnings: The Council meetings helped get an insight into reasons behind some driver partners demanding extra money or refusing online payments. Fuel prices had gone up and driver partners' earnings were impacted. Online payments were transferred to the driver partners’ accounts after almost a week.
To address these issues, Uber increased fares by 12-15% in major cities to offset the fuel price increases. Uber also introduced a Daily Pay process which meant that driver partners received payments made online the following day from Monday to Thursday and on Monday for payments made from Friday to Sunday.