Safe Rider Program: A Road Safety Initiative for Delivery Executives
Delivery executives are the backbone and lifeline of urban economy. They are also an integral part of our daily lifestyle, delivering to our doorsteps everything from food, groceries to medicines and packages. A recent policy brief by NITI Aayog estimates that the Indian gig economy will comprise 2.35 crore workers by 2030, up from just 77 lakh workers in 2020-21. A significant fraction of this informal market relies on mobility.
We began the Safe Riders program in May this year as a way to educate delivery executives on the importance of road safety awareness, and the significance of different traffic signs and road rules. It began as India’s first Traffic Safety Awareness certification programme for delivery executives, organised in conjunction between Yulu Bikes and city authorities & Traffic Police departments. The aim of the program is to enable the delivery executives to become aware of and follow safe working practices as they earn their livelihood.
In the last 8 months, Safe Rider has trained 300+ delivery executives from 7+ e-commerce companies in Bengaluru and Delhi. While the inaugural Safe Rider program was held in Bengaluru by Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) and Yulu, and saw participation by over 50 delivery executives, the first Delhi leg of the program was organized in conjunction with Delhi Traffic Police in September and 65 delivery executives were trained at the Traffic Training Park (TTP) in Roshnara Bagh.
Over the course of multiple Safe Rider events in Bengaluru and Delhi, we developed new and exciting Safe Rider formats to decentralize the program, have minimum infrastructure requirements, do it in lesser time and to do it in a way our target audience finds engaging, like:
- Having specially designed modules about road safety with practical and interactive demonstrations
- Having special demo rides to explain road signages, and
- The most interesting of all, having Nukkad Natak (Street Theater) performances to explain road safety. The first of these Nukkad Natak was held by the students of the Dev Samaj Modern School in Delhi, on the theme of importance of traffic rules in September this year
In the last two months, Yulu has organised multiple Safe Rider programs in South Delhi and in Electronic City & Devarabeesanahalli in Bengaluru. We also launched a Nukkad Natak style Safe Rider program along with Bangalore Traffic Warden Association in Electronic City in December. The program received an encouraging response and saw participation by 50+ delivery executives working for 4 delivery companies.
As the next step in the Safe Rider initiative, we will take the program to Mumbai and use the new pedagogy and formats for effectively training Delivery Executives at scale on road safety awareness.
This article was originally published by Yulu.
