SEOUL — Women will be able to call to request female taxi drivers at night under a Seoul City program beginning in September.
The initiative comes as part of an ongoing effort by city officials to make Seoul more “woman friendly” over the next few years, according to Seoul city officials.
“Many people requested a safer taxi drive home at night for their daughters and female family members,” Jung Do-hun, Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Taxi and Logistics Division, said in a phone interview through a translator last week.
Jung acknowledged that women who call for the female drivers might have a long wait ahead of them: of the 95,000 registered taxi drivers in Seoul, only 820 are women. And only 130 female drivers have applied under a bigger program, called “Brand Call Taxi,” Jung said.
Jung said Brand Call Taxi also has male drivers available who have been certified by the city and are comfortable driving foreigners. English-speaking operators will be made available to customers having trouble communicating with the drivers, he said.
