This is the woman raising the bar of Grab’s safety standards

Grab Editorial

. April 6, 2023

Kimberly Lim is the head of safety and quality at Grab. And she has huge responsibilities to shoulder with the platform serving users across eight countries and over 500 cities in Southeast Asia. As at end-2022, Grab had 32.7 million monthly transacting users.

One of the reasons Grab’s ride-hailing service was created over a decade ago was that safety standards for regular taxi rides in the region were low. People, especially women, couldn’t be sure if getting into a car with a stranger on an untrackable ride would be safe.

Today, those standards are far higher, thanks in part to people working to raise the bar in transportation.

A start in investment banking

Lim leads a team of 40 across the region. They design best practices, policies and processes to elevate the standards of safety at Grab. But this isn’t where she thought she would be six years ago.

She spent much of her early career in several business advisory and strategy roles at an investment bank based in Malaysia.

“I was churning out board papers and strategy decks but didn’t get the opportunity to see them come to fruition. While there was a steady career progression, I felt compelled to leave the comforts and stability of my role and move to an organisation that would allow me to do more impactful work,” she said.

An opportunity presented itself for her to explore something new when a friend approached her to join Grab as an operations manager, where she would oversee initiatives related to driver loyalty and retention.

While she had reservations about taking on an unfamiliar industry, she was attracted to a role that seemed more fulfilling.

Taking the plunge paid off.

Lim very quickly saw the impact behind her work at Grab. She recalled being part of the founding team that launched the Break The Silence initiative in Malaysia, which aimed to empower deaf driver-partners to have equitable access to income opportunities.

“We would conduct workshops to understand their pain points, work with them to build solutions to make communication with passengers and merchants seamless,” she said.

For instance, in-car flip cards were introduced to help deaf driver-partners communicate with passengers.

Lim’s prior background in strategy, combined with her on-the-ground experience at Grab later made her the perfect candidate to head the safety team.

Catalysts for success

In the six years that Lim has been with Grab, technological advancements have made way for new features to boost safety for ride-hailing services.

“We have come a long way from just having a SOS button for users to reach out to authorities if they are in an emergency situation. Instead of being reactive where we provide assistance post-incident, technological advancements have allowed us to play a more preventive role,” she added.

Grab’s trip monitoring feature, for instance, tracks data such as GPS signals, navigation map, smartphone sensors and telematics data to detect potential unsafe scenarios. Selfie verification, too, is used to verify the identity of commuters and driver partners for the safety of everyone.

Technological advancements have allowed us to play a more preventive role.

The diverse nature of her team has also been instrumental in driving the advancements in safety standards.

“At least half of the safety team is made up of women. Having a balanced point of view across men and women has made a significant difference in the way we think and the way we build our safety features,” said Lim.

Still, the underrepresentation of women drivers in the ride hailing industry is troubling, said Lim, adding that more can be done to boost safety and inclusivity on the platform.

For example, Grab attempts to match women passengers with women driver-partners in some markets, which research has shown both parties may prefer.

“We hope to open up new opportunities for more women to join our platform as drivers and for them to feel confident driving with us,” she said.

It all comes back to data

With a myriad of safety issues to be addressed, Lim and her team adopt a data-driven approach to identify what needs to be prioritised.

“We go back to the numbers to identify the biggest safety trends, and that for us is in-person incidents such as altercations between drivers and passengers, especially for our mobility services,” said Lim.

“When this happens, we will usually have to rely on the testimonies or the feedback that’s been provided by both sides, and they would sometimes be different. Who do we trust? This is sometimes inconclusive and prevents us from taking the right action,” said Lim.

The understanding of this problem space had led to the creation of the recently released AudioProtect feature.

AudioProtect encourages comfortable interactions during rides by allowing users to toggle on an audio recording of their rides. This enables Grab to identify the best response when an incident occurs.

“We had several ideas but audio recordings proved to be the most cost-effective and scalable since we don’t need drivers to install a new device. We also had to be extra cautious and make sure that the feature is not seen as something that would encroach on [our users’] privacy,” said Lim.

As the safety landscape of the ride hailing industry continues to evolve, Lim sees a future where Grab would be able to curate personalised safety experiences.

Think Spotify, she said, where it understands the type of genre and artists you listen to and tailors its recommendations to you.

In safety, too, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every user has a different level of safety needs and preferences, according to her.

Lim is looking into the concept of allowing users to personalise safety features based on their commuting patterns.

“What if we could allow users to automatically share their ride details to their loved ones based on the time of the day. Or provide users the option to receive alerts from Grab to check in on them at regular intervals when they take rides late at night,” she said.

The notion of incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into the personalisation of Grab’s suite of safety products is still at its infancy, but it’s big ideas like these that fascinate Lim and spur her on to constantly raise the bar of Grab’s safety standards.

Impact

This is the woman raising the bar of Grab’s safety standards

A start in investment banking

Catalysts for success

It all comes back to data

Komsan Chiyadis

Komsan Chiyadis