New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS): Ride-hailing major Ola on Monday announced to expand its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based safety feature called 'Guardian' across several cities in the country.

'Guardian' uses real-time data from rides to automatically detect irregular trip activity, including prolonged stops and unexpected route deviations.

After running a pilot project, the feature is now live in 16 Indian cities as well as in Perth, Australia and Ola aims to take 'Guardian' to more cities in the coming quarter.

"We are focused on developing innovations that place customer safety at the heart of platform experience. Guardian brings together the precision of artificial intelligence with the assurance of human intervention, enabling a uniform and safe mobility experience across the markets we operate in," Arun Srinivas, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Ola, said in a statement.

The alerts from 'Guardian' are flagged off in real-time to the firm's dedicated 24x7 "Safety Response Team" that reaches out to customers and drivers to confirm if they're safe and offer on-the-call assistance until ride completion.

According to the ride hailing firm, the feature is built on machine learning (ML) capabilities which enables it to learn and evolve from millions of data points every day to improve risk signaling and instant resolution.

Ola first rolled out 'Guardian' as a pilot in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune in September 2018.