GRAB Philippines doled out P30 million last week, 20 percent higher than its initial assumption of roughly P100 million per month to subsidize its drivers, helping them ride out increases in gas prices and other lost revenue, its chief said on Tuesday.
Grab Philippines Country Head Brian P. Cu said his group eleased P30 million in subsidies for rides in the Grab Car platform last week, P5 million more than its initial computation owing to heavy rains during the period.
“For last week only, we released P30 million in subsidies for rides. It’s a bit above our initial computation because of the rain last week,” he said in a media briefing. “We’ll find ways to sustain it.” Passenger-booking requests rose to 900,000 on Thursday due to heavy rains and extreme flooding in several areas across Metro Manila. Thus, with only an estimated 35,000 active cars, both riders and drivers suffered from an approximated 26:1 rider-to-driver demand ratio, costing the company about P2 million in lost revenue. Grab receives roughly 600,000 booking requests per day.
The company started the subsidy program last week to help drivers recoup losses from congestion and fuel costs. It was mainly implemented due to the scrapping of the P2-per-minute charge on its fare matrix by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).
The regulator was set to hear the petition of Grab for the reinstatement of the P2-per-minute charge in its fare scheme on Tuesday, but the hearing was deferred to July.
Subsidies are given to help drivers make at least P330 per hour, which Grab considers “decent” earnings for drivers. Cu said Grab drivers should make around P20,000 to P22,000 per month, excluding incentives given by the company.
This is part of Grab Philippines’s commitment to improve its services in the three months leading to August. In this regard, Grab set up a four-day training of its best drivers — classified according to tiers of Platinum and Gold—to train them on basic and advanced skills on driving.
Spending over P1 million for the Grab Driver Academy, Grab Philippines partnered with Red Cross, A1 Driving School and the Highway Patrol Group to equip drivers with skills on customer service, first aid, road courtesy, and crime protection and detection. Included in the curriculum are electives, such as communication, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, time management, data privacy and social-media handling.
The first batch consisted of 2,000 drivers “educated” in the said program. Cu said Grab intends to train 8,000 more drivers in the next 50 days as part of its “Better Trips: A 100 Day Plan” initiative, as well as its response to recent reports of poor service from its drivers.
Image credits: Nonoy Lacza