Industrial Automation Magazine India

Routematic rolls out a central repository of blacklisted drivers

Published on : Saturday 22-02-2020

The initiative aims to bring transparency, enhance employee safety and encourage cab vendors and companies to add to the list for greater benefit.

Bengaluru, February 18, 2020: Routematic, the Bengaluru-based employee transportation start-up rolled out a central repository of blacklisted drivers. The platform automatically flags blacklisted drivers in the industry and prevents them from entering the company's system at the time of driver onboarding to fulfil everyday employee transportation. This announcement comes at a time when app-based cabs come in the news for all wrong reasons, especially for women safety.

Although almost every cab vendor does a background check for drivers, this information (getting blacklisted in other companies) is not accessible to everybody. There are several unorganised vendors who power office commute and their verification checks do not go beyond checking the driver’s license.

In fact there is no transparency even when it comes to popular ride-hailing aggregators. Passengers often rate and complain about their trips only to get a standard reply. People have no idea if the drivers they made serious complaints against actually got blacklisted and are out of the aggregator’s system. To make matters worse, blacklisted drivers often go out and drive for other ride-hailing companies. Hence there is no perfect way keep a blacklisted driver out of the system apart from creating a repository that benefits all.

With the help of this repository, Routematic’s technology partners will be able to identify the drivers who have been blacklisted in their previous companies so that they can be kept out of the system for the sake of employees' safety especially for those travelling in the dark hours; at the same time encouraging the cab vendors and companies to keep adding to the list for the benefit of the community.