THE RIDEHAILING TREND

The ridehailing trend has emerged in a futuristic landscape of shared mobility, catering to
the consumer’s need for quick, convenient, and cost-effective transportation. Mimicking
the long-known taxi form of commuting, ridehailing connects the rider and the driver by a
smartphone app, allowing riders to easily hail a ride, track where there driver is in real-
time, and be given pricing before confirming the trip. On the business-side, ridehailing
platforms have opened up the driver industry to a wider range of people seeking
employment, creating an opportunity for passive income that many drivers pair with
existing or secondary forms of income.
Ridehailing’s history isn’t that long, but one could say that since ridehailing is essentially
an iteration of the standard taxi, that it goes way back to 1605 when the first taxi – by way
of horse and carriage – was implemented. But in the closest sense of what is has become
today, ridehailing was really launched in 2009 by Garrett Camp when Uber first came
onto the scene as ‘UberCab.’ After their beta launch in May of 2010, Uber’s services along
with their mobile app were officially launched the following year in San Francisco. In the
early days, however, Uber was built around the premise of black car service and private
driver, with only black luxury cars and prices 1.5 times that of a standard cab. After
complaints were made by San Francisco-based taxi operators, ‘UberCab’ became what
it is today and was renamed to simply ‘Uber.‘
After estimating demand that was more similar to a standard cab, ridehailing started to
reflect what it is today: in the spring of 2012, Uber launched a service in Chicago allowing
riders to request a regular taxi or an Uber driver with its mobile app. By the summer of
2012, UberX was introduced, allowing people to drive for Uber using their own vehicles,
subject to meeting certain vehicle standards. After beta testing in the SF bay area, Uber
launched UberPOOL – an option to carpool with same app – in the summer of 2014. In
2014, Uber begins looking at opportunities to implement ridehailing in other ways, with
plans to disrupt the parcel delivery and food delivery industries. Later that year, Uber
launched UberFresh (now UberEats) to deliver food to consumers in Beverly Hills.

Also in 2012, Uber’s largest ridehailing competitor Lyft came onto the scene. Initially, Lyft
was offered as a service under Zimride, a long-distance ridesharing company operating
since 2007, focused on providing shared rides for longer trips and linking drivers and
passengers through Facebook. By the spring of 2014, Lyft was operating in a total of 60
US cities and competing heavily against Uber. In the summer of 2014, Lyft Line was
introduced, allowing passengers to split fare on shared rides (and serving the more
affordable ridesharing market). The main difference between Zimride and Lyft represents
the difference between ridesharing and ridehailing today – Zimride is more similar to
carpooling with strangers, while Lyft is more similar to calling your own private taxi.
DiDi – now the second largest ridehailing company in the world – was founded in June of
2012, was launched as ‘Didi Dache,’ an app for consumers to request taxis for immediate
pick up and later allowing consumers to reserve taxis for the next day. Today DiDi is one
of the major taxi apps in China, with over 100 million users in more than 300 cities. Also
in 2012, GrabTaxi was launched in Malaysia as a mobile taxi booking app and expanded
to the Philippines in the summer of 2013.
In 2016, the company rebranded to just ‘Grab,’ offering all of their products under the
brand including:
 GrabCar, personal car service;
 GrabBike, motorcycle taxis;
 GrabHitch, carpooling option;
 and GrabExpress, last mile delivery service.

KEY EXAMPLE
Grab Holdings Inc. is a Singaporean transportation network company offering
services that include peer-to-peer ridesharing, ride service hailing and food deliveries. In
addition to transportation services, the company provide digital payments, door-to-door
parcel delivery and e-scooter sharing services via its mobile app.
Founded: June 2012; 7 years ago (as Grab Taxi)
Founders: Anthony Tan, Tan Hooi Ling
Areas: 168 cities across eight countries (February 2018)
Products: Mobile app, website
Vision and Mission
 Empowered future of seamless mobility, on-demand food delivery, logistics,
cashless payments, and financial services for the people of Malaysia and
Southeast Asia – all within one mobile app
 Grab shares its vision to be Malaysian consumer’s everyday app
 Vision fulfills Malaysian and Southeast Asian consumers’ wishlist for an everyday
app where users will be able to commute, eat, deliver packages, and pay for
daily essentials through one Grab app in the near future
 Immediate plans include introducing GrabFood and expanding GrabPay services
to serve the daily essential needs of Malaysians beyond ride-hailing
Services:
As Grab’s service offerings expand, more and more consumers, drivers, delivery couriers,
and merchants will benefit in many ways including:
 Transport: Beyond just ride-hailing, Grab’s larger mobility vision is to enable a
multi-modal future that serves people’s first- and last-mile needs more seamlessly.
Soon, consumers will be able to mix, and match different transport options based
on their travel preferences and budget. With better integration of public and private
transportation options in one platform, consumers can choose to ride across and
pay for multiple modes of transport seamlessly in one single journey. For instance,
they can take an on-demand shuttle bus, continue their journey on public transit,
and finally take a JustGrab to their final destination – all through one Grab app.
 Payments: By expanding the use of GrabPay as a mobile wallet beyond transport,
both consumers and merchants have a more seamless and secure way of
 transacting. Consumers can enjoy the benefits of a cashless society such as
greater convenience and a more seamless retail experience, while traditional,
cash-based businesses are able to increase productivity and save business costs
by going cashless. With a large transport and food user base, GrabPay and
GrabRewards will also become real revenue drivers for micro-entrepreneurs and
small businesses, giving them access to new customers in an affordable way.
 Financial services: Grab’s fintech offerings create new economic opportunities for
millions of unbanked and underbanked consumers, drivers and small businesses
across Southeast Asia. Over 6 million micro-entrepreneurs across the region have
been enabled by Grab’s platform to date, and Grab targets to enable 100 million
micro-entrepreneurs by 2020.
 Lifestyle: With on-demand transport, food, and delivery enabled by one mobile
wallet, consumers will have their most important everyday needs met. The
opportunity and flexibility to drive, deliver or offer consumer services through the
Grab platform and to earn more income or business revenue at their own time and
pace is also open to everyone who want to leverage the opportunities of a digital
economy.
Forms
 Grab Taxi Grab Car - The GrabTaxi service in the app assigns taxis and private
hire cars to nearby commuters through a location-sharing system. Users will key
in their destination and the app will search for nearby taxicabs or private hire cars
(depending on the services selected).
 Grab Remorque,
 Grab Bike - GrabBike or Ojek (in Indonesia) is a bike sharing service similar to that
of GrabCar.
 Grab Share Hitch – carpooling service
 Grab Express - GrabExpress is a door-to-door delivery service that allows users
to send and receive parcels. The service uses a location-sharing system to match
couriers and delivery-partners around the area to senders.
 Grab Fresh - deliver high-quality fresh food and frozen products – yes, even ice-
cream – to your doorstep within an hour, or at a pre-arranged and convenient time.
 Grab Pay - eMoney
 Grab Food - GrabFood is a food takeaway and delivery service that allows users
to search and order food from restaurants and eateries nearby, while nearby riders
(Motorbike riders/e-Scooter riders/Cyclists) will be assigned via a location based
system to deliver the food over to the user.
History:
The idea of creating a taxi-booking mobile app for Southeast Asia similar to those
being pioneered in the US first came from Anthony Tan, who is the youngest of the three
brothers of the family that operates Tan Chong Motors, the authorised distributor
for Nissan cars in Malaysia. When a friend visited him in Malaysia, Anthony heard his
friend complaining about the horrible experience of riding taxis in the country. In particular,
his friend was concerned that his taxis may be taking an incorrect route or overcharging
him. Taking inspiration from Garrett Camp's ride sharing concept, Anthony decided to
take this problem up as a project while studying at Harvard Business School. When he
presented the project to his professors, the comments he received were that this project
was "difficult to implement" despite the success of other ride hailing services in the U.S.
such as Uber. The project won second place at the Business Plan Contest at Harvard
Business School. The app was also selected as the finalist at Harvard’s Minimum Viable
Product Funding award.
In June 2012, Anthony Tan quit his position as the head-of-marketing of his family
business Tan Chong Motors at Kuala Lumpur and launched the "My Teksi" app in
Malaysia (known as "GrabTaxi" in other countries) together with Tan Hooi Ling, another
Harvard graduate.Tan Hooi Ling, Anthony's classmate, who was also a consultant at
McKinsey & Company, drew a business plan for promoting the mobile app.
MyTeksi was launched with initial grant of US$ 25,000 from Harvard Business
school and Anthony Tan's personal capital. Anthony Tan became the CEO of the
company. He was able to arrange meetings with the largest taxi companies, but was
initially met with negative responses despite the model's success elsewhere. Not only
was he told to not "...sell this stupid app. Nobody will use it. Taxi drivers will steal your
phone – they’re terrible people," he was even told to go back to his family business. Only
the fifth taxi company he spoke to, who operated a fleet of only 30 taxis decided to give
him a chance.
GrabTaxi expanded to the Philippines in August 2013, and to Singapore and
Thailand in October of the same year. In 2014, Grab in partnership with HDT Holdings,
introduces 100 BYD e6 electric taxis in Singapore to form the biggest e-taxi fleet in
Southeast Asia. In 2014, GrabTaxi further continued its growth and expansion to new
countries: first launching in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam in February, and Jakarta in
Indonesia in June. In May 2014, the company launched GrabCar. It serves as an
alternative form of transportation that uses personal cars instead of taxis through a
licensed partner in an effort to overcome the lack of public transportation during peak
hours. In November 2014, GrabTaxi launched its first GrabBike service in Ho Chi Minh
City as a trial service. By 2015, GrabBike's motorcycle service rides had spread
throughout Vietnam and Indonesia. GrabBike also provides medical insurance for their
passengers and drivers. In February 2015, the company launched GrabCar+ (a service
that provides a fleet of higher-end cars) in the Philippines.
In January 2016, GrabTaxi was rebranded as "Grab" which encompasses all the
company's products under one roof: GrabCar (personal cars), GrabBike (motorcycle
taxis), GrabHitch (carpooling) and GrabExpress (last mile delivery) with a new,
redesigned logo. In October 2016, Grab added an in-app instant messaging feature called
"GrabChat" to allow simple communication between riders and drivers. GrabChat can
even translate messages if the set languages of the driver and passenger are different.
In December 2016, Grab introduced "GrabShare" which offers taxi and car sharing
services.
User Algorithm
In May 2014, GrabTaxi said it had 1.2 million downloads. At around June 2013, it
claimed to be doing one booking every eight seconds, or 10,000 a day, representing
sixteen-fold growth within a year In November 2017, Grab reached one billion rides with
66 concurrent rides in one second across seven countries, occupying 97% market share
in the third-party taxi hailing market and 72% in the private vehicle hailing market. The
company also claimed to have two million driving partners, 68 million mobile app
downloads, and 3.5 million daily rides. In December 2018, Grab claimed to have served
920 million kilometers worth of rides to its users that year.
^^^
The Philippine Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB)
accredited 6 new transport network companies (TNCs) – MiCab, Hirna, Hype, Owto and
GoLag in April 2018; and ePickMeUp in June 2018

 MiCab Systems Corporation is a taxi-hailing company which traces its roots to a

startup ideation camp in Cebu City in 2012. It has been operating in the city since
then.
MiCab is a wordplay for Mobile Internet Cab, with the aim to modernize taxi
operations.
With its accreditation, MiCab looks at venturing into the Metro Manila market while
maintaining operations in Cebu, Iloilo, and Davao.
MiCab does not charge booking fees. Commuters only have to pay what is on the
taxi meter. Under government-approved fares, taxis charge a P40 flagdown rate,
with an additional P13.50 every 300 meters and P2 per minute travel.
 Like MiCab, HirNa Mobility Solutions Incorporated is another transport network
company (TNC) that is focused on giving taxis a platform for bookings.
HirNa is now looking at expanding to Metro Manila, Iligan City in Lanao del Norte,
and Cagayan de Oro in Misamis Oriental.

The app has a 24/7 hotline service for bookings to cater to commuters who do not
have smartphones. It also has a button within the app that directly connects to the
hotline of the LTFRB, should there be problems with the ride.

To place bookings, patrons don't have to put their destination, unlike other ride-
hailing apps. They can choose between a taxi sedan or a taxi AUV.
 HirNa doesn't charge booking fees as well, with commuters paying only what is on
the taxi meter.

The LTFRB recently allowed all ride-hailing firms to charge P2/min travel.

 Owto is a TNC by Ipara Technologies and Solutions Incorporated, founded by

former Grab and Uber drivers who wanted to make the ride-hailing industry a
profitable one for drivers.

Paulo Libertad, Owto's chief operating officer, said they charge the smallest
commission among other companies at 15%. The average commission charged is
at 20% of driver's earnings, not including incentives.

Owto recently launched on May 18. Like Uber and Grab, it offers transport network
vehicle services for sedans around Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, and Cavite. It
also has a pooling feature.

It charges a fee of P50 if cancellations are done 3 minutes after the booking was
made.

Under its approved fares, Owto charges a base fare of P40, with an additional P12
per kilometer and P2 per minute travel. They set a surge cap of times two the fare
for the distance traveled and duration of the ride.

 Go Laguna, or Go Lag for short, is a ride-hailing service looking at offering rides to

Greater Metro Manila Area commuters, who are sometimes rejected by existing
ride-hailing drivers because of the distance.

Originally intended to serve the province of Laguna, Go Lag expanded its intended
market to Metro Manila, Cavite, Rizal, and Bulacan.

Go Lag has yet to launch its app, but is currently accepting driver applications.

It will be a ride-hailing platform for sedans. Go Lag will be charging a base fare of
P40, on top of P14 per kilometer and P2 per minute travel. Surge pricing is capped
at 1.5 times.

 Among the TNCs, Hype Transport Systems focuses on the security of both drivers
and commuters. Though the app is not yet available for download, Hype will
feature an "SOS" button in times of emergencies.
 Hype will offer different vehicle types for commuters ranging from taxis and sedans
to AUVs and SUVs. It will also offer a ride-sharing service for sedans.

The flagdown rate for each service depends on the vehicle type. Sedans will have
a base of P40. For SUVs, it's at P70, and for vans, P100. There will be an additional
charge of P14 per kilometer and P2 per minute, with a surge cap at times two the
charge.

Meanwhile, Hype's ride-sharing service has a P30 flagdown rate on top of P9.50
per kilometer travel.

^^^
Angkas is an on-demand app-based motorcycle taxi service. With the traffic situation
getting worse in metro areas in the country, commuters need more and better options
fast, and that’s why we started Angkas. No, we don’t think this is going to solve all
commuter woes, but we do think motor taxis allow commuters to beat the traffic in
versatile and flexible ways that most four-wheeled vehicles cannot.

All across Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, motor taxis
have already become an accepted mode of transportation that gets hundreds of
thousands of people past crazy gridlocks and jams. With about half of all vehicle sales in
the country being motorbikes, we find it odd that we haven’t unleashed their potential as
a transportation service for more people.

As an online platform, we’re able to quickly match interested passengers with nearby
bikers, which is really the new standard for passenger transport these days for anyone
familiar with ride-hailing or sharing services. Anyone wishing to try the service can simply
download the app, book a ride at a fixed, upfront rate, and wait for the biker to arrive in
minutes. On top of that reliability and convenience, we make sure all rides are safe and
professional by providing bikers with the necessary tools and skills. All bikers get safety
and customer service training, while all passengers get a helmet, raincoat, mask, hair
caps, and personal accident insurance for their comfort, convenience, and peace of mind.
All in all, pretty amazing.
 Professional bikers. All of their bikers are carefully examined and undergo strict
safety and defensive driving training and skills assessment conducted by certified
safety instructors.
 Driver’s detailed info. Once you confirm your booking, you’ll get your assigned
biker’s information: name, mobile number, vehicle registration, and ETA.
 Live trackable rides. All rides with Angkas are logged into their system; rest
assured they know where their biker is at any given time.
 Passengers are covered with personal accident insurance in the unlikely event of
an accident.
 Gear & tools. Passengers are provided with helmets, face masks, caps, and
raincoats for safety and hygiene.