Starting next month, Uber will pilot a new feature in the United States that allows women passengers and drivers to opt into same-gender ride pairings — a move aimed at enhancing comfort, choice, and safety for women using the platform.

The feature gives women the ability to indicate a preference for being matched only with female drivers when booking or scheduling rides. Similarly, women drivers can choose to be matched exclusively with women passengers. While the preference cannot be guaranteed, the company says it will significantly increase the chances of same-gender pairings within the app.

The pilot program will first roll out in three major cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit. This initiative follows successful tests in other global markets including France, Germany, and Argentina. The company’s leadership emphasized that this feature is about giving users more control over their experience.

“This is about giving women more choice, more control, and more comfort when they ride and drive,” said the company’s head of U.S. and Canada operations.

Gender-based pairing features are not new to the platform. In 2019, a similar program was introduced in Saudi Arabia after women were granted the right to drive. That initiative eventually expanded to around 40 countries.

The new U.S. rollout is part of a broader effort to address longstanding concerns about safety in the ride-hailing industry. Both passengers and drivers have reported incidents over the years involving harassment and assaults, which have led companies to develop more proactive safety tools. These have included features like PIN verification, trip tracking, emergency assistance, and designated teen accounts.