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Grab introduces GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car, a social carpooling service

Grab, Southeast Asia‟s leading ride-hailing and mobile payments platform, today launched the first four-wheels social carpooling service in Indonesia, GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car.

  • Aimed at reducing traffic congestion, regular commuters who drive can now pick up hitch buddy who are going the same way, and offset some of their driving costs
  • People can plan their day and book more affordable rides with GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car in advance
  • Opportunity for commuters to have a companion on long daily commutes through Greater Jakarta traffic and inter-city journeys while expanding their social network

 Jakarta, 24 May 2017 – Grab, Southeast Asia‟s leading ride-hailing and mobile payments platform, today launched the first four-wheels social carpooling service in Indonesia, GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car. The service is designed for regular commuters – ranging from Professionals, Managers, Executives, and Engineers – with extra space in their cars to pick up fellow hitch buddy who share similar route or destination, while at the same time reducing their operational driving costs for daily work commutes and inter-city trips such as on the Jakarta – Bandung and Surabaya – Malang routes. GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car will be a new and cool way to meet new friends, where commuters can have a companion as they travel to and from work.

Grab is committed to continuously innovate to fulfill Indonesians‟ transport needs, and provide additional services to make the Grab app experience even more seamless. The launch of   GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car in Indonesia is driven by the projection that car ownership in Indonesia is set to rise by 10.5% per year until 20201. The region‟s motorcycle owners are also expected to upgrade to four- wheeled vehicles, representing a large pool of first-time car buyers. GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car is an affordable point-to-point intercity travelling option and a comfortable daily commuting alternative to public transport or driving your own car. This will help to reduce the number of individual cars travelling to and from the city centre daily, by encouraging more people to travel together in the same vehicle.

“Specifically in Indonesia‟s major cities, the numbers of vehicles are considered high. Jakarta, for instance, recorded more than 3 million passenger cars in 20142 with approximately 8.75% growth every year. Imagine the significant pool of vehicles with extra seats for more hitch buddy. Every car has the potential to play a part in helping to reduce traffic congestion issue and air pollution in Indonesia‟s mega cities and meet the growing demand of rides each day. We‟re introducing GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car off the back of successful launches of GrabShare and GrabHitch (Nebeng) Bike, and are heartened that more Indonesians are using carpooling services as we all work together to reducing the number of vehicles on our roads,” explained Ridzki Kramadibrata, Managing Director, Grab Indonesia.

Commuting has been found to be one of life‟s least enjoyable activities. Especially that commuting times have steadily increased in the big cities, and the rising problem of congestion has only exacerbated the issue of wasting time, money and fuel. According to INRIX in its all-new Global Traffic Scorecard, Jakarta, Bandung, Malang, and Surabaya are named as several of the most congested cities in Indonesia and Asia at large3.

“Commuting has significant psychological and social costs. It can be a major cause of stress due to the unpredictability and a sense of loss of control. Commuters can experience boredom, social isolation, and anger and frustration from problems like traffic or delays. So, we at Grab think of how we can make things better for the commuters. As the sharing economy becomes mainstream, Grab believes that there is a growing niche of commuters, for whom transport is not just a transaction, but an opportunity to build connections with fellow commuters. GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car encourages commuters to shift into carpooling community with exciting benefits, both for drivers and hitch buddy,” said Mediko Azwar, Marketing Director Grab Indonesia.

GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car

GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car requires advance booking, and Grab will match hitch buddy requests to drivers who share similar journeys. Hitch buddy and drivers can schedule a trip from 15 minutes up to 7 days in advance. Drivers are only allowed to accept a maximum of 2 rides a day. It is a not-for-profit service and drivers can share the costs of their daily commute with other commuters.

Benefits of GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car to drivers include:

  • Companionship: GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car provides the drivers an opportunity to find out new things and expand their network through socializing with potential business partners, new friends, or sharing fun topics during the trip thus making the commuting experience more exciting.
  • Cost offset: GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car offsets the cost of drivers‟ journey, such as fuel, toll, and parking fee by giving a hitch to those who share similar route to the office, home, or travelling outside the cities during weekend.
  • High control: The drivers can choose the hitch buddy they want to pick up, see the payment method prior to accepting the booking & choose their preferred payment method for cash out, as well as manage their own driving.
  • Safety: To help create a connected ridesharing community in Indonesia, GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car drivers and hitch buddy log in to use the service with Facebook. This allows them to see each other‟s profile and whether they share mutual friends. Both parties can also indicate that they only want to travel with someone of the same.
  • Environmentally friendly: With GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car, the drivers can give a hitch to reduce number of cars passing on the road with single occupancy, thus participate in alleviating the congestion and promoting environmentally friendly.

Benefits of GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car to hitch buddy include:

  • Reliability: An advance booking allows hitch buddy to manage their time daily thus making their lives more efficient.
  • Affordability & convenience: GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car offers a lower cost – compared to GrabCar – with cost sharing system for daily commutes and intercity trips with the same convenience and it also enables the hitch buddy to gain more friends, knowledge, and share stories.
  • Hassle-free cashless transaction: the hitch buddy can pay their rides with GrabPay thus making it hassle-free – as simple as a hop-in and hop-out.
  • Social networking: GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car enables the hitch buddy to expand their social network with the drivers from Professionals, Managers, Executives, and Engineers backgrounds. This is the one value that integrates both commuting and social networking.

“Through ‘It all starts with a Hitch’ campaign, we spark the idea that anything can happen started with a hitch as this service provides an opportunity for people to socialize and exploring novel things with their new friends and potential business partners thus expanding their social network. The first phase of this campaign embraces the idea of Together is more fun or Asyiknya barengan: There are lots of things better to be done together and definitely more fun when people have someone to share with, particularly when getting stuck in a traffic, such as listening to music or singing together; engaging in a conversation, playing games, sharing food, and social networking. With a new friend, people will have someone to talk to and have fun together, enabled by GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car,” concluded Mediko.

GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car now!

 GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car is now open for drivers to sign up. Drivers can download or update their Grab App to the latest version, which is available for free on Google Play or App Store. To sign-up, just click on the „GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car‟ icon, select the „Be a GrabHitch Driver Now‟ button and follow the instructions. GrabHitch (Nebeng) Car will launch to commuters in the next 2 weeks.

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 About Grab

Grab is Southeast Asia‟s leading ride-hailing platform. Grab solves critical transportation challenges to make transport freedom a reality for 620 million people in Southeast Asia. Grab‟s core product platform includes commuting solutions for drivers and hitch buddys with an emphasis on convenience, safety and reliability, as well as its proprietary mobile payments platform, GrabPay. Grab currently offers services in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar. For more information, please visit: http://www.grab.com.

  • Imagining Asia 2020, DBS Bank Research, page 32
  • Central Statistics Agency, 2014
  • All-new Global Traffic Scorecard published by INRIX on 20 February 2017

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