‘Women spend far more than men do getting home’: The impact Uber’s price surge may have on safety

As the ride-hailing app boosts London prices by 10 per cent, Olivia Petter examines how women’s safety could be affected

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Picture the scene. You’re on the street, late at night, trying to figure out how to get home. There’s a night bus that can take you some of the way, but you’d have to walk at least a mile afterwards on a quiet residential street. There’d usually be the Night Tube, but that doesn’t start again until the end of the month, and the limited lines make it hard to plan a route.

Thank goodness, then, that there are taxi apps, which you can hail to wherever you are in a matter of minutes. But wait: there aren’t any drivers available. Oh, hang on, you’ve found one; he has four stars and is seven minutes away. After two, he has cancelled. It’s 3am, and you’re alone.

To any woman living and going out in London, this will be an all too familiar experience, one that has become particularly concerning this year following the deaths of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, who were both killed after walking at night in the capital.