FREE NOW OFFERS €250,000 IN TRIPS TO TRANSPORT VULNERABLE TO VACCINATION CENTRES ACROSS

European investment of €1million announced to help people visit vaccine centres across Europe in line with national vaccine rollouts

08 February 2021 - FREE NOW, Ireland’s leading ride-hailing app has committed to support the transport of vulnerable people to vaccination centres across Ireland in line with the Government’s vaccine rollout. The company is committing €250,000 of its €1 million European investment to help Ireland’s national effort to roll out the vaccine to the most vulnerable groups over the coming weeks. People eligible for the vaccine will be able to avail of the FREE NOW support of €20 towards their visit to and from from their nearest vaccine site. The money will be redeemable by submitting FREE NOW receipts via a dedicated page on the FREE NOW website. The support for vulnerable passengers will ​ th ​ be available from 8 ​ February. ​

The ride-hailing company is uniquely placed to offer this service as it already has partition screens in over 60% of its fleet, offering peace of mind to passengers. This is the latest in a series of actions the company has taken to support with the COVID response, from creating the Medical fleet type to ​ ​ transport key workers at the height of the pandemic, to installing partition screens and handing out PPE to drivers who have been working throughout.

Currently, the Government is prioritising the vaccination of the most vulnerable groups across Ireland, including frontline workers and those aged 85 years+, to protect against COVID-19 to ensure they are protected. The FREE NOW investment has been made to help encourage and support safe journeys to vaccination sites for the vulnerable, many of whom are older and may not have access to private transport.

Niall Carson, General Manager for FREE NOW Ireland said: “It is so important that the most ​ ​ vulnerable people in Ireland are able to get vaccinated as soon as possible and part of this is ensuring they get to the vaccine centres quickly and safely. Taxi drivers have been keeping the country moving throughout the pandemic and this will be an extension of that. The sooner we can protect the vulnerable and have widespread roll out of the vaccine, the sooner we can all look ahead to Ireland’s recovery and a brighter future.”

Christopher Flynn, a taxi driver from said”:”It has been a tough year for everyone and we ​ ​ all want to do our bit to help in the national roll out of the vaccine so we can get back to some kind of normal.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About FREE NOW

FREE NOW is the multi-service mobility joint venture backed by BMW Group and Daimler AG. Next to ride hailing, FREE NOW also offers micro-mobility services such as e-scooters, e-bikes, e-vespas as well as car sharing. It consists of the services FREE NOW (10 European markets) and Βeat (5 Latin American and 1 European market). Summed up, those services currently attract 50 million users in 16 markets and more than 150 cities. FREE NOW is therefore the biggest multi-service mobility provider in Europe and the fastest-growing ride-hailer in Latin America. FREE NOW works with various third party providers to offer their customers an even wider range of options to get from A to B. In total, around 2,000 employees in around 35 offices work for the services of FREE NOW, which is led by CEO Marc Berg. FREE NOW is Ireland’s leading taxi app and has been active in the market for eight years. Moving over 16 million people a year, operating in over 20 towns and cities across Ireland offering drivers a pay as you go solution to their business and passengers the opportunity to pay by card, business account or cash if they wish. Niall Carson is the General Manager of FREE NOW Ireland. More information on the vaccination support can be found here: https://free-now.com/ie/covid-vaccination/