Bolt invests N179bn on safety features in 3 years

Ride-hailing platform, Bolt, yesterday said it has committed €100 million (over N179bn) over the next three years to bolster safety measures on its platform.

This investment will support The Bolt Safety Team in its critical work of product development, customer support, safety feature awareness, and preventative measures to minimise safety incidents.

The announcement was made during a global safety campaign launch event held in Lagos where the team demonstrated the newly launched rider’s verification feature.

The event brought together key stakeholders, including the Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, representatives from the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO), safety experts, Bolt representatives, and members of the media.

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Bolt’s dedicated Safety Team of over 500 specialists works tirelessly to achieve the company’s safety goals. The team comprises Safety Specialists who provide 24/7 customer support from Bolt’s Safety Hubs across the globe and Safety Experts based in Tallinn, Estonia, who focus on product development, engineering, and operations.

General Manager at Bolt Nigeria, Osi Oguah, said: “We take our responsibility to ensure the safety of our platform very seriously. With €100 million committed over three years to safety, we recognise that this requires an end-to-end approach across our business in Nigeria.

“That’s why The Bolt Safety Team of over 500 specialists from across the world will focus their efforts on product development, support, and scaling preventative measures to stop safety cases before they happen in that time. We’ll also continue to raise awareness of our safety tools with educational campaigns like the current ‘Bolt Safety Team’ campaign running in Nigeria to raise awareness of the in-app features that we know can help prevent cases.”

Lagos State Commissioner of Transportation, Oluwaseun Osiyemi, represented by the Director of Transport Operations, Engr. Olasunkanmi Ejiowuro said the ride-hailing apps help in managing traffic, reduce congestion and reduce pollution.

He said: “I commend Bolt for its continuous collaboration with the Lagos State government and its proactive approach to enhance safety measures on its platform. Given the importance of a safer transportation ecosystem, it is our responsibility as a progressive government to encourage collaboration among all key stakeholders, including private sector operators like Bolt”.

Bolt stated that it will also continue to invest in upgrading existing features like Ride Check to proactively detect if a trip’s route unexpectedly changes or takes longer than expected to finish, and introduce Trusted Contacts to ensure Ride Check notifications are escalated to a friend or loved one if needed.

Among the features are the Record Audio, which has already been used to trigger in-app audio recordings to submit with Customer Support tickets across 14 markets including Nigeria since launch.

Regional Manager, North and West Africa for Bolt, Lola Masha said Bolt’s focus on safety was not driven by any spike in safety issues but its global commitment for safety of the app users.