Mister Darren Hui, 52, who has been traveling with Grab for about seven years, shared similar views: “Sometimes we get advised about a job close to 2 . 5 to 3km away, and it takes us about six to a couple of minutes to reach the pick-up point. When we achieve, some passengers still make us await another five minutes. ”
“Some passengers will say they need time to be prepared. But you see, they assigned us six to 10 minutes traveling. Isn’t that sufficient time to get ready? ” he added.
Mr Hui explained that full-time drivers like themself drive around 25 to 30 excursions a day.
“If every trip is cut down by two minutes . that’s (saving) 1 hour daily. That’s a great deal to us. And also you haven’t even included the travelling time from the location where we accept the task to the pickup stage. ”
A FEW PASSENGERS “MISUSE” GRACE PERIOD
Several passengers also improper use the grace time period, said Mr Hui.
They will ask him the reason why he can’t await them if their a few minutes aren’t up. Therefore he feels that the revision is “fair”.
“We’ve all taken a school bus just before. Does the school tour bus wait for you and me? No, you have to wait downstairs for the school bus to come, ” he said.
Mr Lee, whom drives around 12 to 15 hrs a day for six days a week, contributed that “it continues to be relatively common regarding passengers to be reservation their (rides) whilst still at home or in the office, and experimenting with the five minutes”.
“As the penalty strategy is automated from the time we arrive, plenty of passengers will only reach the 4: 30 to 4: 55 mark. Most are not even apologetic about it, ” he said.
“You can calculate how much time drivers lose if we’re to pick up 10 such passengers per day. ”
Grab told CNA on Tuesday that the decision to reduce the grace waiting around period was made after “careful evaluation”.
“Today, 94 per cent of our rides already see passengers at their pickup points within three minutes of their drivers arriving, ” the company said.
“As the country reopens and much more passengers book trips, we want to help our driver-partners capture these types of new demand developments by spending their particular time on the highways more productively. inch
Grab also shared with CNA that the revised sophistication waiting time will help reduce fuel wastage caused by idling motors, which has become more of the “pain point” for its drivers amid increasing fuel costs.
DRIVERS SHOWING THEY’VE “ARRIVED” BEFORE THEY ARRIVE
Following Grab’s announcement, many passengers lamented on social media they often encountered drivers who indicated they had arrived before they will actually did. This means that the grace waiting around period kicks in before the driver gets to the pickup place.
In response to queries from CNA, Grab mentioned on Tuesday that it can be improving controls at the backend so that drivers will only be able to mark their appearance when they are at the pickup point or “very close” to it.
But since it stands, drivers at this point can only indicate they have arrived when they are usually near the pickup point, drivers told CNA.
“Drivers can only ‘arrive’ within a very, very close proximity from the location, due to the specialized capability of the application which is dependent on GPS NAVIGATION. Sometimes, we can not even press ‘arrive’ when we’re at the location, due to, for example, the passenger’s insight of their office at the 15th storey of the building as the pickup location, ” described Mr Lee.
“(In such cases), we shed time as we have to force ‘arrive’, ” the Grab operater said, adding that the passenger then requires a while to come towards the pickup point.
Even if there is a “mini jam” in the car park, it is “still reasonable for the driver to put ‘arrive’ first, because the proximity is a very, very small radius” and “there will be sufficient time for the operater to reach the passenger”.
He or she noted that specially in condominiums and flats where passengers ask for a pick up through the basement car park, motorists will usually indicate they’ve arrived once they complete the security guard house, as they “don’t understand if there is sufficient data coverage in the basement”.
Mr Lee said this individual believes a driver’s job is to “race against time”, especially with rising gas and other operational expenses.
“It is not that the two minutes saved are crucial, but it’s more (about) making a compromise between your driver and the passenger, ” he stated.
“There are passengers seeking fairness. Everyone is thinking for themselves, I actually get that. But how many drivers may one passenger encounter in a day versus (the number of) people that a driver looks in a day? How to find the particular equilibrium when it comes to justness? ”
Eventually, Mr Lee seems that “empathy works both ways”.
He has occasionally refunded the S$3 waiting penalty in cash, as he knows the passenger is usually “genuinely not responsible due to GPS error or the passenger will be handling another passenger with a mobility help thus they’re slower”.
“Humans should be more understanding to each other, no matter who they actually are, ” he mentioned.