Grab, a ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia, announced the launch of GrabShare, the company’s first on-demand commercial carpooling service in Malaysia and the Philippines.
With GrabShare, passenger demand for rides can be met more efficiently with the existing car supply which helps to play a role in reducing traffic congestion. In return, passengers enjoy cheaper rides with minimal detours, while drivers earn more by completing two bookings in one trip.
GrabShare pairs just two different passenger bookings with similar trip routes within a single trip. Hence, passengers will only experience a maximum of two stops before reaching their destinations.
For example (according to Grab):
1. Passenger A selects GrabShare ride and is picked up by a GrabShare driver.
2. Passenger B selects GrabShare ride, and Passenger A and B are matched. The Grab app notifies both the driver and Passenger A and B of a successful match.
3. Driver makes a slight detour to pick up Passenger B. Both Passenger A and B can bring up to one more person to ride with them (only four passengers allowed in the car).
4. The order of pick-up and drop-off ensures that both Passenger A and B get to their destinations quickly.
Benefits of GrabShare to passengers include:
1. Cheaper fares
GrabShare fares are priced up to 30 percent cheaper than GrabCar Economy fares. Fares are fixed and displayed upfront. With Grab’s dynamic pricing model that balances supply and demand, passengers enjoy cheaper rides during non-peak hours when more available drivers are on the road.
2. Ride with a friend
In the spirit of sharing, passengers can travel together a friend. To keep the ride comfortable for all, passengers can only bring one other friend per GrabShare booking.
3. Maximum two-stop guarantee
Passengers can expect no more than two stops before reaching their destinations. This ensures everyone reaches their locations fast for less. Drivers will wait up to three minutes for each passenger at pick-ups.
4. Instant booking
Passengers can book a GrabShare ride on-demand from anywhere, at any time and enjoy socialising with fellow commuters on the ride.
5. Ride with peace of mind
Grab’s Group Personal Accident Insurance covers all passengers in the event of an accident. The total personal accident benefits for the driver or passengers can be up to USD10K per person in Malaysia. (Each incident will be evaluated individually by the insurance providers and coverage amount differs across markets.)
Conceptualised, designed and engineered across Grab’s three research and development centres in Singapore, Seattle and Beijing, GrabShare’s matching algorithm ensures passengers get to their destinations in the shortest possible time. The algorithm calculates and determines a match by factoring the closest available drivers, travel time, overlap of trip routes, detour distance and current traffic conditions before intuitively sequencing pick-ups and drop-offs.
For drivers, GrabShare focuses on maximising potential earnings by reducing the time and distance spent on a single GrabShare ride, enabling drivers to complete more jobs per hour to boost their incomes and reduce fuel consumption.
First launched in Singapore in December 2016, GrabShare has been effective in attracting more new riders to the Grab platform. In two months, Grab completed two million GrabShare rides, for a total distance of about 20 million kilometres. Along with the rapid passenger adoption of GrabShare, Grab said it has seen an improvement in passenger matching rate by 15 per cent.
With more passenger bookings completed, driver monthly incomes have also increased 10 per cent on average.
The Grab app is available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
