'A no-brainer for the taxi industry': Comfort Cab offers drivers personal safety device

Cab drivers in Saskatoon have a new way to stay safe while they work.

Local taxi company Comfort Cab has partnered with the makers of ORA,  a personal, wearable safety device to provide the alert devices to all of their drivers.

Shondra Boire, spokesperson for Saskatchewan Taxi Cab Association and operations manager at Comfort Cab, says it's a better option than either safety shields or amber lights because drivers can have it on them at all times. 

Drivers currently have panic buttons in the cabs, but they're only accessible if you're in the vehicle.

"Say something happens and they want to rob them and steal their car — the driver's left to jump out of the car. If they don't have their phone with them or anything, at least now they have this device they could push right away…. I thought this was a no-brainer for the taxi industry."

The device pairs with an app on your phone. It works by sending out an alert to any chosen contact once the user presses a button on the back of the device. In this case, the contact would be dispatch. Dispatch would be prompted to call the driver back, and if they get no response, the driver's phone will call 911. 

This was a no-brainer for the taxi industry.- Shondra Boire, operations manager at Comfort Cabs

The drivers would pay for and own the device, but Comfort Cab would cover the majority of the costs and the monitoring responsibility.

Comfort Cab started offering the device as a voluntary option to drivers at the beginning of October, and Boire says while there has been interest, none of the drivers have taken them up on the offer yet.

'Help at their fingertips'

Serese Selanders is the CEO of Kasiel Solutions, which created ORA as a fashionable, wearable safety device for older adults, but quickly began to receive requests for its use from workers and employers.

"There's all sorts of people that need help at their fingertips," she said.

The people most interested she described as "urban, lone workers," like mobile mortgage specialists, salespeople, real estate agents, inspectors and drivers.

For those people working alone or often going into uncertain scenarios, the device can provide peace of mind, she said.

"It also shows employees that the employer cares about their safety … by providing them with a device like this."

While Kaisel Solutions is based in Saskatoon, and the product is manufactured in Canada, the company is working with companies all over North America.