Joining the field of ride service apps that gives customers a cab on their terms is a new upstart SheRides, an app for women to order a livery cab driven by a woman. The first ever ride-matching service started by a Latina, Stella Mateo, launched its website on Tuesday.

On Monday, when the founder thought she could launch the company, they quickly realized that despite the 50 drivers that signed up to provide a service, demand outstripped supply. They've halted their launch and are now recruiting drivers in day-long career fairs before launching the app.

"Over the past week we have tested our capability and found that the demand for rides is much higher. We intended to start the program with 50 drivers but we found ... we need at least 500 drivers in order for us to come into the market and release our app to the public," said Tamika D. Mallory, a spokeswoman for SheRides, told reporters.

Several dozen women turned up at City Hall on Monday sporting pink scarves, a signature of She Rides, to join the founder of the company.

"I've always known that SheTaxis, SheRides would be a good idea, but I never anticipated the level of support I have been receiving from women and men.  ...[A] service that provides women with equal opportunity, income equality. In all the years I have been associated with the New York City taxi industry, I have seen women's needs go unmet on either side of the partition. I wanted to create a service that would empower women financially and personally, and while creating a safer and more reliable service for women female passengers," Mateo told reporters. Mateo is originally from the Dominican Republic and came to the U.S. when she was 14.

In the taxi and livery service in New York, only 2 percent of the drivers are women but 60 percent of the 600,000 riders a day are women, according to Mallory.

The cars will be easily identifiable by their pink stripe. In New York there is a restriction on the word "taxi," so the company will go by the name SheRides, but outside of New York it will be known as SheTaxis.

In addition to recruiting licensed drivers, SheRides will provide services to help women get a driver's license.

New York City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez commended the service.

"I have no doubt this program will not only succeed, but bring a previously unknown sense of safety in a time of increasing violence towards women," Rodriguez said.

Andrew Celli, attorney for SheRides, was asked whether the service was exclusionary.

"The court treats gender very differently [from race], and any challenge to this would be profoundly wrongheaded as it would be directed at a program that is designed to create opportunities for a minority that was excluded from this business. It is the opposite," Celli explained.

Celli said he didn't know any other industry, including the construction trades, that is as segregated as taxi and livery driving.

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