PickMe invests Rs. 50 million over 18 months to keep driver partners and customers safe

PickMe, Sri Lanka’s Number One ride hailing company, said last week that in the last one and a half years, the company has invested over Rs. 50 million in new innovations and safety measures to keep their driver partners and customers safe through the raging pandemic.

“The latest feature introduced is especially for their passengers who can now identify the vaccinated status of the driver they hail via an indicator icon appearing on the app.,” a news release said.

“With the start of the vaccination drive in the country, we encouraged all our driver partners to get the vaccine, by giving them a cash incentive. We will continue to provide our drivers this incentive until 80% of our fleet is vaccinated.

“Currently we have more than 3,000 vaccinated driver partners and we are working towards reaching 60% before September 16,” says Gowshik Sathiyasiva, Head of Marketing & Communications of PickMe.

PickMe’s vaccination drive also extended to their passengers when they launched a special promotion, offering a discount of Rs.150/- to passengers travelling to the nearest center for their COVID-19 jab.

The promotion was live for three weeks, and 5,000 customers used the discount to travel back and forth to get their vaccine. This promotion has now been re-initiated with the recent vaccination drive in the country, the release said.

“Prior to the vaccination icon, a new tech feature was introduced last year, to show the driver’s temperature on the Passenger app and it was made mandatory for drivers to enter their temperature every time they logged in.  They implemented temperature checkpoints around Colombo and Kandy in partnership with the Sri Lanka Police, to make sure driver partners enter accurate data,” it added.

PickMe also assisted authorities to track the movement of Covid positive patients with the use of its locally built contact tracing feature. Drivers have been constantly educated on safety precautions related to Covid-19 through an in-app training module, and customers were also made aware through stickers and placards placed in all their vehicles.

Another safety measure taken by PickMe for both driver partners and passengers was to place separators in over 8,000 tuk tuks in their fleet so that the driver and passenger could ride in isolation.

In partnership with the Rotaract club, Colombo, S-Lon and Keells Super markets, hand washing units were installed in PickMe tuks.  PickMe also distributes hand sanitizers regularly to their driver fleet to be installed in their vehicles.

The Head of Marketing of PickMe says the company will continue to strictly follow all safety guidelines and invest in new innovations to ensure the safety of their driver partners and passengers.