Grab (formerly known as GrabTaxi) is a Smartphone-based taxi booking app which was started in the year 2012. Its main challenge was how to get taxi drivers to come on board its platform. The traditional taxi drivers were rather conflicting about the new technology, unlike the office-goers who seemed generally enthusiastic. This taxi service extended its operations like Singapore, Indonesia, and Philippines etc. The taxi companies in these cities are tending to be large. Meanwhile in some of these countries, the government regulations and the laws were reviewed in the concept of sharing economy.

How does the Grab taxi’s app works?

The commuters need to download the Grab taxi app onto their Smartphones and provide some personal information in the initial stage. To book a cab, the person has to indicate the location and the particular destination after which the app will provide an estimate of the fare. The taxis on the Grab Taxi platform will be visible to the office-goers. By tapping on the Book Now icon, the drivers will be contacted and when a driver accepts the booking, the office-goers will receive an email and also an SMS notification.

The app will then track the taxi as it approaches the customer. There is a set of protocols within the app to call the driver when necessary. At the end of the trip, the office-goers can opt to rate the driver and write a review. They are not charged a fee for using the Grab Taxi app. The taxi fare incurred is the fare being charged by the taxi companies since Grab Taxi works with all the taxi drivers regardless of the affiliation with the taxi companies.

Grab taxi app is user-friendly

Most of the people exclaim that Grab taxi’s app is fast; because it is constantly updated with each and every detail of the customer including the locations. A notification message alerts on each driver’s phone, and if many drivers request for a job, the conflict is immediately solved by Grab Taxi’s servers and the successful driver is notified immediately including the commuter. When a booking is made by office-goers, the phone shows in real-time a list of cabs being offered the job. Once a match is made the passenger’s number and the driver’s contact numbers are exchanged between each other so that they can communicate each if needed. The dialing can be done from the app.

Because the drivers and the office-goers are likely to be using 3G devices, the response time is much faster than those from the operator’s terminals which are on the much slower GPRS. For the office-goers, using this amazing app eliminates the problem of trying to book cabs by using three or four different apps that he/she in a hurry for a taxi. Moreover, the real-time feedback that a booking is unsuccessful means that office-goers can immediately try the booking again.

Goals and Strategies

The company aims to introduce a simple, cost-effective mobile app technology to both drivers and the passengers. The target was realized when Grab Taxi introduced a Smartphone app created to facilitate the taxi bookings for the customers. The taxi drivers sign up with Grab taxi to offer the services. With the help of this technology, the company hopes to optimize matching the taxi drivers with the passengers. The company’s strategy was to bring the individual taxi drivers onto the platform it has created.

The platform is a mechanism to facilitate the transactions between the office-goers and taxi drivers. For a smooth working of the company’s platform business model to work, the company has to ensure it is sufficient and time supply of taxis. It must have a critical mass of taxi drivers to achieve the level of user experience. It must persuade the drivers to sign up for its app. If the office-goers have to wait for the bookings to be accepted, the app will be shown a red flag all over the cities. Any lack of the advantage of using the app seems to contribute to the downfall of the company. The grab taxi charges taxi drivers a commission of thirty cents for every booking they accept.

The Grab taxi platform clearly has incentives for the taxi drivers to join. When a customer in their location requires a ride, the taxi drivers are notified. This reduces the aimless driving which typically happens in the taxi industry. The group of commuters has to be sufficiently large, for the reduction of aimless driving. The other incentives which include bonuses provided to taxi drivers to increase the income.

Grab plans to invest a huge amount

The application based ride-hailing platform grab have planned to invest about seven hundred million dollars in order to expand its business in Southeast Asia. This funding investment is part of the company’s master plan for future in which it pledges to pen a research and development facility in Jakarta, hire more number of engineers and invest in the startup companies and collaborate with more banks to expand its e-payment system. The company will invest about hundred million dollars in financial technology startups as it aims to take part in efforts to deepen the financial matters in the country. Furthermore, Grab also seeks to improve its own e-payment platform, known as the Grab Pay by a tie-up with a famous company. The Grab users will eventually be able to use the platform to pay for the goods and services at Lippo’s retail partners. Grab started its business in Indonesia as Grab Taxi, an app-based taxi booking service founded in the year 2014 in Malaysia. The company started in Jakarta for several reasons. Despite never mentioning the exact number of users, nor driver partners in the country, Indonesia is said to be Grab’s largest market in Southeast Asia slightly more number of operations. The company claims that its application has been downloaded thirty-three million times and it has nearly seven lakh drivers in the Southeast Asia region.

Grab launches a different and cheaper Car-pooling Service

Grab the technology company that offers a wide range of ride-hailing services in Southeast Asia launched its car pooling service recently in Singapore after its competitor started the same service. It is reported that the company accepts the bookings for the similar routes but the maximum booking is for only two people. The company also promises to commute the passengers quicker with are thirty percent cheaper than Grab Car Economy fares. The company also says that the new service is different from the existing carpooling services called Grab Hitch. This service allows only four passengers with a single ride.

Moreover, because of the reason that it matches car owners with the passengers it has to be booked a certain time period in advance. The Grab passengers can expect fast traveling with maximum two stops before reaching the destinations. The company refused to disclose the count of drivers are engaged in its various services and provided an average number of fifty thousand drivers in its network. Though the company did not reveal the manpower behind the service, it exclaimed that vehicles will get optimally utilized and the drivers can also earn more per hour.

Author Bio

Anand Rajendran is CEO and Co-Founder of Zoplay, best PHP scripts development company located in India. Zoplay is a part of Casperon Technologies a leading social and mobile development company. I’m a Tech geek, Digital marketing expert, Entrepreneur, and Atheist who loves to write everything about PHP Scripts and mobile application development. Cabily Script is a clone of Uber, which developed by the tech gigs of his company.