How drivers and passengers help Grab with accurate weather data

Yichen Zhao, Lead Product Manager - Geo Services

. December 5, 2024 . Regional

This small cloud icon on the ride booking page enables driver-partners and passengers to make rain reports in real-time.

Knowing exactly where and when it’s raining helps us better estimate and prepare for demand in mobility and delivery services.

We typically get weather updates from official third party sources. But infrastructure for precise, real-time weather monitoring may be limited in some cities. To supplement the data from these sources, we explored ways to get a more accurate and granular view of the weather.

We launched the Rainy Weather Crowdsourcing feature in October this year. This, along with other products and initiatives, has allowed us to enhance our weather signals. This enables us to make strategic adjustments on the backend, such as notifying driver- or delivery-partners to head to areas where we anticipate higher demand due to rain.

Additionally, we are exploring sending targeted notifications to passengers, informing them when driver-partners are navigating through rain and may take a bit longer to reach the pickup point

How Rainy Weather Crowdsourcing works

By tapping on the cloud icon on the transport page, users can report the intensity of rain as heavy, moderate, or light.

These reports are then aggregated and cross-verified with other data sources, including our KartaDongle devices. These devices are connected to vehicles to track data like speed and wiper status, which give us an almost real-time view on where and when it’s starting to rain.

Our systems on the backend then use algorithms to assign a confidence score to each report, which filters out inaccuracies.

We’re also working on further enhancements such as allowing users to submit photos of the weather conditions to help us better identify and classify rain levels.

Rainy Weather Crowdsourcing draws inspiration from our already existing Real-Time Incident Reports where driver-partners can submit reports on road closures, accidents, flooding, and poor traffic conditions, among others. We’ve observed that driver-partners actively submit these reports without any prompts, indicating that crowdsourcing for weather reports could be similarly effective.

By harnessing collective insights across various data sources, we can enhance our ability to adapt and respond to real-time weather conditions, ultimately making our rides smarter and more convenient.

Deliveries and rides

How drivers and passengers help Grab with accurate weather data

How Rainy Weather Crowdsourcing works

Komsan Chiyadis

Komsan Chiyadis