December 10th, 2021, Hoang Nguyen
In October, BT proposed launching the “Walk Me Home” service, which would allow users to dial the service, have GPS track their location on their way to a destination and alert their emergency contacts if they don’t arrive.
The proposal came following high-profile news cases of violence against women, including the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa.
New research from YouGov measured awareness around the “Walk Me Home” service to find that by the close of November,
roughly a quarter of British adults say they have heard of the proposed service (26%).
The data also reveals that women tend to view the service more favourably than men do. When asked if they thought the service would have a positive or negative impact on their personal safety or the safety of others, three in ten women indicate it would have positive effect (30% vs. 22% of men). Roughly 17% of women are neutral on the subject.
If the “Walk Me Home” proposal does come to realization, BT would be glad that
30% of women in the study say they plan to use the service or encourage others to use it(vs. 22% of men).
It’s unsurprising that women would be more likely to use and see value in the “Walk Me Home” service given how they feel about walking alone at night.
A separate study conducted by YouGov
in 2021 asked women and men how safe they felt walking alone night and found that 63% of women who walk by themselves at night time always or often feel unsafe doing so (up from 46% in 2018). By contrast, just 15% of men say they feel unsafe walking alone at night.
Receive monthly topical insights about the telco industry, straight to your inbox. Sign up today.
Discover more telco content here
Want to run your own research? Start building a survey now
Methodology: The results come from YouGov Realtime and are based on the interviews of 5,643 British adults aged 18 and over. All interviews were conducted online between November 1 and November 30, 2021. Results are weighted to be nationally representative.