TIER, Europe’s leading micro-mobility operator, has partnered with the personal safety AI app Flare to launch several innovative safety features, including an ‘SOS’ emergency button, to support the safety of its riders.
The new SOS feature, which is available for all TIER riders in London and York, allows riders to discreetly call for help in the event that they feel unsafe or threatened when travelling.
Through voice activation or a simple tap of a button, a live tracking link is sent to all nearby Flare users as well as the rider’s five emergency contacts to ensure that help arrives as quickly as possible.
The partnership with Flare – fourth on our TransportTech 50 ranking last year – comes shortly after TIER’s research collaboration with the social enterprise Safe & the City. The study found that in the UK only one in five women feel safe travelling alone at night and, when riding an e-scooter at night, women’s biggest concerns are the fear of being followed, stalked or sexually harassed – displacing daytime concerns about the behaviour of other road users.
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The partnership with Flare will also see TIER riders able to access other new features, including its GroupSafe feature which allows riders to share their live location with friends or family to ensure they get from A to B safely, and its hazard warning feature which lets riders report upcoming hazards to alert other riders or road users of their approach, such as a pothole or an icy road.
This follows from Flare’s incident detection feature, already available to TIER riders, which uses machine learning to recognise if a rider has been involved in a safety incident and notifies emergency contacts if no response is detected.
James Duffy, founder and COO at Flare, said: “As e-scooters become more prevalent in the UK, we believe everyone should have the right to feel safe whilst riding. We’re really excited about partnering with TIER, and proud to keep their riders and the roads safer for everyone.
“Not only does Flare provide world leading protection features but we have also partnered up with RoadRadar to provide Flare and TIER users with a world’s first incident prevention system. We aim to support and empower everyone to feel safer by using innovative technology in smartphones that you already own today, in order to protect and prevent unfortunate situations from occurring.”
Georgia Yexley, TIER’s UK general manager, said: “Our ambition is to improve road safety for all. That means not only addressing the physical safety of our riders on the road, but also supporting them to feel confident on their journeys – at whatever time.
“Our partnership with Flare is a critical addition to our existing safety initiatives, using innovative technologies to support both the safety of our riders and other road users.
“As a company working within the wider transport sector, we feel a profound responsibility to do everything we can to ensure all transport users have the right to free movement, to feel safe and remain confident in the systems to protect them on their journey.
“Collaborating with transport operators and pioneering companies like Flare are vital to achieving a safe, integrated transport system for all.”