SINGAPORE: Grab on July 29 mentioned it does not charge passengers higher fares designed for booking rides in order to locations they have stored on the app, after a post on video-sharing app TikTok stated that manually entering in the same deal with of a saved area could save bikers S$5 (RM16).
The ride-hailing firm told The Straits Times that will its algorithm utilizes Geohash, a global standard for maps that will splits places in to very small zones, meaning places that are alongside each other could be positioned in different zones, leading to different calculations of demand and supply. This in turn can lead to fare variants.
It is not clear if the passenger in whose case was flagged by TikTok user mozzarellapapi had keyed in the exact same place as the one that the girl had saved.
“Our pricing algorithm divides Singapore in to many small zones on the map subsequent latitude and longitude lines, based on the global Geohash system, ” Grab said.
“Our system has largely been keeping the variance within fares small to get pick-up points which are very near to one another. We will continue to keep working on ways to do so. inch
Grab, the biggest ride-hailing player within Singapore, allows users to save their often visited places for the app under labels such as “Home” plus “Work” so they do not have to repeatedly key them in.
Various other ride-hailing apps like Gojek also enable users to do exactly the same.
The TikTok video, posted on July 27, had cited one situation where a girl was able to save S$5 (RM16) after manually keying in her work address, as compared with when she tried to book a ride to a location she saved as “Work”.
The TikTok user then attempted it by entering in the address 28 Ann Siang Street, next to 27 Ann Siang Road, which he had saved because his workplace. The result was an US$16. eighty (RM54. 20) fare, US$7 (RM22. 58) cheaper than the US$23. 80 (RM76. 78) he would have purchased a ride to operate.
The video has been subsequently liked by several 16, 600 TikTok users and shared 4, 017 times.
Many others left a comment that they also observed a fare distinction when they manually keyed in the addresses of the saved locations, even though a significant proportion also said the method did not work for them.
Mozzarellapapi later cautioned his followers against jumping to results.
He published on his post: “I’m sure there’s a technical explanation for why this happens so please don’t send hate to Grab. I just wanted in order to remind everyone to check on their settings/options when booking to get the cheapest option. ”
The confusion uses Grab drew critique two weeks ago for reducing the grace time period for riders to reach their booked vehicles before they incur a waiting fee from five minutes to three.
Grab has said it is refining its controls so that drivers cannot mark that they have arrived at the location unless of course they are very near to it. ST has asked the company for more details about this technique. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network