Last week, Grab Philippines imposed penalties to around 500 of its drivers after receiving complaints of canceled bookings.
In an effort to decrease the number of trip cancellations, Grab Philippines has announced that some of its drivers will no longer see passengers’ destination before accepting bookings.
Previously, drivers can see a passenger’s destination before deciding whether to accept or reject the booking.
This new feature will be initially rolled out to only 25 per cent of Grab drivers in Philippines with historically low acceptance rates from April 27 onwards.
To further “reduce selective behaviour of drivers”, another new feature—auto-acceptance of bookings—will be fully rolled out on the same day as well.
This means that jobs will be automatically allocated to the drivers, and it will apply to all Grab drivers.
According to Grab Country Head of Philippines Brian Cu, an option to see passengers’ destination would be made available to drivers during the wee hours of the morning for “protection” purposes.
On the users’ end, they will be required to provide correct and complete account information to verify their identity.
Responding To Complaints On Booking Difficulty
“We will implement non-showing of passenger information before ride acceptance, as it is a major source of complaint,” Cu said in a statement.
He added that the main reason for the difficulty in booking a ride is the lack of cars, which is why they are unable to fulfil the demand when there’s a surge.
“We have rolled out additional and stricter measures to address issues on cancellations and this is just the start.”
“We want to vastly improve our services; hence, our consecutive decisions to sanction 500 errant drivers over the week, and now the non-showing of the passenger destination and the auto-accept feature.”
It is still uncertain if these features will also be implemented in the other countries that Grab operates in.
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