A new chapter is being written for ride-hailing.
In the world’s wealthier markets, the sector is increasingly being shaped by autonomy with a wave of robotaxi announcements flashing off the back of cities across the US, Europe and Asia.
In many developing nations, however, platform-based ride-hailing is only just beginning to take hold, remaining entirely novel in some parts of the world.
inDrive is the second most-downloaded ride-hailing app globally with its business built predominantly around these underserved markets. Its model centres on price negotiation which allows riders and drivers to agree on a fare before a trip, underpinned by a wider philosophy of giving both sides greater freedom and entrepreneurial control over their lives.
Heading up this mission is Chief Ride-Hailing Officer Evgenia Matrosova. As ride-hailing takes on very different forms around the world, we sit down with Matrosova to explore what she sees as the fundamentals of the industry – fairness, safety, economic opportunity and freedom of choice – and what she’s doing to ensure drivers remain in control not only of their work, but of their lives.
Zag Daily: What differentiates inDrive from its competitors?
Evgenia: “The product itself. The product is centred around the freedom of choice for both passengers and drivers. Fairness is the core of our platform. Fairness and choice come with our price negotiation model which applies across all of our markets except those where the price is determined by the regulator. inDrive sets a recommended starting price based on our driver earnings calculations but the rider can adjust that price within a range which the driver can then accept or reject. If the rider wants a quick ride for example, they may choose to offer a higher price. When riders and drivers have the power to negotiate on a fair price, they drive the whole fairness of the industry up.”
Zag Daily: How do you protect the wages of your drivers?
Evgenia: “Our take rate – which is the money the platform takes from driver earnings – is around 10% which is one of the lowest in the industry globally. This means drivers are earning more while the service is kept affordable for riders through the fare negotiation. Outside of the core ride-hailing vertical, we have ‘inDrive Money’ which offers drivers loans for personal or business reasons, like helping them to finance their own vehicle. We also have loyalty programmes for our drivers to incentivise them to stick with us. We’re in a fuel crisis and in some countries this has hit our drivers substantially. We provided our drivers with fuel vouchers to ease their finances.
“It’s not just about protecting the wages of drivers, it’s about protecting their freedom. On inDrive, drivers aren’t punished for not accepting rider orders. They choose whatever hours they want to work and they’re free to spend their time however they like without punishment from the platform. They can accept or reject any ride fare. They can choose not to make drop-offs in unsafe zones. A female driver can select a female passenger, or a driver can choose not to take a passenger with a bad rating. We’re trying to empower drivers to be entrepreneurial and in control of their lives.”
Zag Daily: How does inDrive protect its female riders?
Evgenia: “Ride-hailing mirrors the risks that women fear across all aspects of their lives. Risks like entering dangerous zones and fearing harassment or sexual assault. Most ride-hailing services – us definitely – are committed to ensuring driver misconduct does not occur. We vet our drivers, educate them and conduct checkups. Safety doesn’t depend on whether the ride-hailing service is a platform or not a platform, although you may tend to think platforms are generally safer. Safety is about what procedures the service has in place to know who their drivers are such as with identity checks, checks on driver’s licenses and whether there’s criminal history.
“We have safety features in place for all riders. Riders and drivers can pick who they want to be matched with. Female riders can select female drivers with the best rating and reviews. Trip monitoring means riders can share their trip details with others. These are gender-neutral features but women can really make use of this. Again, it comes with freedom of choice which is embedded into the model.”
Zag Daily: How does inDrive support its female drivers?
Evgenia: “Our support for our female drivers goes beyond safety. In Latin America, we’re scaling an initiative called Juntas Llegamos Más Lejos which launched in Peru in 2024 and has since scaled to Colombia and Mexico, with plans to potentially expand beyond the region. It’s an initiative which helps women get their driver’s license and provides them with guidance and mentorship to help overcome social barriers and create new economic opportunities.
“A lot of women in Latin America are restricted and don’t have much economic opportunity or independence. They have no feeling of empowerment and don’t feel in control of their own life. One very serious example of this is domestic violence. If a woman is being assaulted at home, doesn’t have economic independence or doesn’t know how to drive, she is stranded in those conditions. This initiative aims to support women to be in control.”
Zag Daily: What resources does inDrive provide through this initiative?
Evgenia: “One of the main focuses is supporting women to become drivers. It’s not about obliging them to become drivers on inDrive or even a professional driver. We provide theory and practical driving training to support each woman to get her license whether for personal reasons or whether she wants to work with it afterwards as an economic opportunity.
“Driving practice is combined with online education and psychological support to help women overcome social and financial barriers. They receive training support, mentorship and guidance and the aim is to build their confidence and transition them into new economic life. We don’t want anything in return.”
Zag Daily: How do you select the women you support?
Evgenia: “We make announcements on the initiative – such as through social media – and there are different stages of support women can receive based on their personal circumstances. Last year we supported around 1,000 women in Peru to get their driving license, each of whom had the process entirely funded. But the initiative reached many more women through the other resources such as with online guidance. This year, the target is to reach around 2,050 women in Peru, Mexico and Colombia and support them with obtaining their driver’s license.”
Zag Daily: inDrive also plans to offer autonomous vehicles. How will you balance your AV ambitions with your mission of protecting drivers and economic opportunities?
Evgenia: “Autonomous mobility should be a tool for economic and technological advancement, not a force for exclusion. Many of our markets are supply-constrained with orders often exceeding ride-hailing availability. Again, this in part comes down to the freedom of choice we provide our drivers, letting them work when they want and accept whatever rides they want.
“Autonomous vehicles can therefore serve our riders with more choice, especially in low-density areas. Ultimately, it’s about improving system reliability while keeping the core of the driver’s proposition untouched. The priority is ensuring drivers are not excluded from the system. We’re actively exploring how to make drivers part of the AV system as it scales, rather than have the system develop without them. I cannot share much on the details yet because it’s work in progress. But the commitment is to keep drivers at the heart of our system.”
Zag Daily: What does inDrive’s autonomous vehicle model look like?
Evgenia: “We’re aiming for a partnership-led, capital-efficient model for autonomous mobility. We are not aiming for large scale capital deployment such as with our own manufacturing or fleet ownership.
“We will also continue to serve high-growth, underserved markets. Autonomy is becoming a reality but the transition will take time and it will not happen equally globally. The economics in high-income cities with developed infrastructure like Los Angeles or San Francisco will be very different from the economics in high-growth and price-sensitive markets. Autonomous vehicles should not lead to the exclusion of developing nations. Expanding this technology across high-growth mobility markets represents one of the largest business opportunities in the coming decades. AV hotspots like the US, London and Germany – we do not plan to launch there at this point. Serving high-growth mobility markets remains the core of our mission.”
Zag Daily: inDrive has partnered with WeRide to launch autonomous ride-hailing in Riyadh and Jeddah. Can you tell us the details?
Evgenia: “The partnership is a key aspect of the approach outlined in our AV manifesto, published earlier this year. We’re exploring a range of ways to bring AVs onto our platform across a number of regions, including the Middle East. Our overarching goal is to create a commercially viable and scalable autonomous mobility model designed with affordability in mind. This work is at an early stage and we’ll keep you posted on further updates.”
Zag Daily: What’s inDrive’s focus for the rest of 2026?
Evgenia: “The focus remains the same but being consistent can sometimes be the hardest task in the world. Everyone talks about agility but the world is very unpredictive.
“We will continue to do what we do, focused on our mission of giving both passengers and drivers freedom and fair choices both through the ride-hailing vertical and through non-profit initiatives. We are balancing scaling in our existing markets and launching in new ones. We will continue expanding into other verticals such as with inDrive Money to support our drivers with financial services. We’re developing food delivery and we’re progressing on our AV development. With everything we do, we try to reach as many lives as we can. This is at the heart of our business model.”
Zag Daily: Who is one woman in the sustainable mobility industry that inspires you and why?
Evgenia: “There are many women who inspire me in the sector today but one woman who stands out to me is Karla Dominguez Gonzalez, Senior Transport Specialist within the World Bank’s Transport Global Practice. She’s spent years mainstreaming gender into transport projects – analysing the barriers women face in mobility and accessibility, developing strategies to address sexual harassment on public transit and applying a gender lens to rural road projects across Latin America and Africa. This really resonates with our mission at inDrive – to make sure that fair and safe mobility is accessible to all.”
