My sister-in-law flies into Melbourne about once a month for work. She travels alone, usually lands around 9 or 10 at night, and takes a cab home. She has done this for years without incident. She also follows a short list of habits she has built up over time, some of which she picked up from me and some she figured out on her own. This post is that list, written for women who are about to do the same thing, and the people who care about them.
I have sat in this trade a long time. I have also raised two daughters who use taxis, catch Ubers, and fly in and out of Tulla by themselves. What follows is what I tell them, not what the brochures say.
What the research says, briefly
An Australian study published in 2025 found about half of women respondents had experienced unwanted flirting, intrusive questions, or comments about their appearance from taxi and rideshare drivers. That figure is the same for both types of service. It is also the same for most large cities.
The number that gets reported, that gets to court, that becomes a news story, is a much smaller fraction. The part worth paying attention to is that the low-grade stuff happens often enough that every experienced female traveller I know has a story. None of them stopped taking taxis over it. They adjusted.
The adjustments are what this post is about.
Before you land: the three choices that matter
Most of the safety of a taxi ride is decided before you get in the car. Three choices stack the odds in your favour.
Pre-book when possible. The biggest single lever. A pre-booked ride means you know the driver's name, plate, and pickup bay before you land. The operator has a record of who collected you. That alone changes the behaviour of the driver in small but meaningful ways. See the pre-booking article for the full case. I tell my daughters and my sister-in-law to pre-book any late-night arrival, no exceptions.
See your exact fare — enter your suburb
Fixed price, all tolls and GST included. No card required.
Share your trip. If you are taking Uber, share the trip with a friend or family member through the app. If you are in a taxi, send the plate number and operator name to someone by text. "Hi mum, in a cab with [operator]. Plate T7724. Arriving 11:30pm." The act of sending the text is what matters. Drivers who see a passenger tapping a message about them into a phone behave differently to drivers who think nobody is watching.
Sit in the back, behind the empty front seat. If the driver turns in his seat to look at you, he can see you; if he turns the other way, he can't. Sitting diagonally from him, behind the empty passenger seat, is a small thing that marginally increases your visibility of his hands and his mirror and decreases his natural reach toward you. It also feels more like a cab than a social ride.
At the airport: how to get in a safer car
The layout of Tulla is in your favour here. The legitimate ranks are supervised, well-lit, and on CCTV. The places to avoid are indoors or on the wrong side of the pickup zone.
Use the rank or the pre-booked pickup zone, nothing else. The T1, T2, and T4 ranks are kerbside, lit, and have a supervisor in a high-vis vest during peak hours. The pre-booked pickup zone is at the north end of the T1/T2/T3 car park. Anyone offering you a ride inside the terminal, in a private car, or at a car park entrance is not a legitimate driver and is not who you want.
Make eye contact with the rank supervisor as you join the queue. They are there to watch who gets in which cab. You want them to register you as someone in their line. If they later need to say "she got into plate T-3412 at 10:41pm", they can.
If the rank is deserted and the only cab has a driver standing outside the car staring at you, that is not the cab to take. Wait 90 seconds for another. Legitimate cabs roll up continuously.
If you've pre-booked, confirm the booking reference number with the driver at the bay. "Can you confirm the booking reference?" A real driver has it in the operator's app. A fake driver pretending to be your pickup does not.
During the ride
A short list of things I have watched my daughters do that I now think of as standard.
Keep the phone visible. Not to record — you can't legally record audio in a CPV in Victoria — but to signal that you are connected to the world. Drivers who might otherwise say something untoward are less likely to do so when a phone is in your hand.
Volunteer nothing personal. "Is this your first time in Melbourne?" is a routine question and usually friendly. "Where are you staying?" is fine, because the driver needs to know. "Are you traveling alone?" is a question you do not have to answer. "No, my partner is meeting me" is a fine response regardless of whether it is true.
Watch the route on your phone map. Not because you need to police the driver, but because it tells you instantly if something is off. A driver who takes a route dramatically different from Google's suggestion without a good reason (road closure, traffic) deserves a polite "we're going Citylink, aren't we?" The question alone is often enough.
If the driver asks to stop anywhere other than your destination, say no. "No, I need to go straight home." Firm, no explanation, end of topic. No legitimate driver will push this.
Trust your read. If something feels wrong — the car smells wrong, the driver is asking invasive questions, the route is strange, the doors are locked when you did not lock them — you do not need a specific provable reason. Ask to pull over at the next safe place. "I need to get out here, please." A reasonable driver will do it. Call an Uber from the kerb. You can work out the cab fare issue later.
If something goes wrong
What actually works, in order.
During the ride, if you are in active danger, 000. Immediately. Stay on the line. The operator can triangulate your phone and send the nearest police unit. Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police both have jurisdiction around Melbourne Airport and response times are short.
After the ride, if something was off but not criminal, Safe Transport Victoria on 1800 638 802. This is the CPV regulator. A complaint against a specific driver is logged against their accreditation. A pattern of complaints triggers an audit, and audits are career-ending. Your time complaining is not wasted.
If you think you were followed after drop-off, Victoria Police on 131 444. Not 000, because you are out of the immediate situation. Describe the driver, the plate, the time. They can check CCTV from the airport and the operator's logs.
For a fare dispute, your bank. Chargebacks for obviously inflated taxi fares are usually approved within days if you act within 48 hours.
What Melbourne Airport itself does
Worth knowing what backs you up.
The entire taxi rank zone is on CCTV, and so is the pre-booked pickup zone. Melbourne Airport has ambassadors in orange vests near arrivals most of the day. There is a full-time AFP presence at the airport, and they can be reached through any ambassador or information desk. The rank supervisors at T1, T2, and T4 have radios connected to airport operations.
This means if something starts wrong at the airport, there is a person to go to within about 30 metres. It does not solve everything, but it is more infrastructure than most other airports offer.
A note on the people behind the wheel
The majority of Melbourne taxi and rideshare drivers are decent people. My own colleagues are fathers, grandfathers, immigrants working multiple jobs, people running out the last years before retirement. I do not want this post to read as an accusation against the trade, because it isn't. It is a how-to for navigating the small percentage of drivers who do not behave the way the rest of us do.
The reason I take the time to write this is because when my sister-in-law flies in at 10pm on a Thursday, she gets out of the same car my sister-in-law always gets out of, tips generously, and goes to bed. That is what a safe taxi ride looks like. The habits in this post are how you stack the deck so that becomes the overwhelmingly likely outcome for you too.
If you want one thing to take away, it is pre-book. The rest is additive. The pre-book is the biggest lever. See the Melbourne Airport fare and booking hub for what a pre-booked option actually costs.