Singapore, 09 May 2017 — Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading ride-hailing company, today announced that it is expanding GrabShare to include taxis, bringing taxi-sharing back to Singapore again. GrabShare is Grab’s commercial carpool service that pairs two passenger bookings for a cheaper ride at a fixed fare. To be rolled out progressively on 16 May, passengers who book a GrabShare will either be assigned a fixed fare taxi or car for sharing – whichever that is best matched to the passenger’s destination.

Taxi-sharing was first introduced in Singapore in 1997 via the “Share-a-cab” initiative, which allowed commuters to request for shared taxis through information panels located at selected taxi stands. With the advent of ride-hailing technologies, Grab has now digitised the taxi-sharing experience to enable commuters to request for a shared taxi ride anywhere, anytime. Grab’s booking platform scans all incoming GrabShare requests island-wide to find passengers’ the closest match for more efficient travel.

The introduction of taxi-sharing is backed by the increasing popularity of commercial and social carpool services such as GrabShare and GrabHitch. As the sharing culture becomes mainstream, GrabShare offers an additional income source for taxi driver-partners, on top of existing services including JustGrab’s fixed-fare bookings and GrabTaxi’s metered-fare rides. Taxi driver-partners on GrabShare can expect to boost their earnings by up to 40 percent from completing more jobs at a given time.

For passengers, GrabShare offers more affordable travel with minimal stops. Benefits include:

• Fare savings: Sharing a ride brings cost savings for passengers. GrabShare fares are up to 30 percent cheaper than individual rides, making it an economical option for daily travel.

• Faster rides: With taxis now part of GrabShare, passengers can experience faster bookings and enjoy shorter waiting time from the largest combined carpool fleet under GrabShare.

• Minimal stops:  GrabShare only pairs two passenger bookings, guaranteeing only one additional drop-off before a passenger reaches his or her destination. This ensures everyone reaches their locations fast for less. Drivers will wait up to three minutes for each passenger at pick-ups.

• No additional costs: GrabShare users can bring one other friend on the ride at no additional cost, and both must share the same pick-up and drop-off locations.

“Grab is excited to bring taxi-sharing back to Singapore through our platform. Since launching GrabShare in December, we have been studying trip data and refining our matching algorithm to better match passengers with similar routes to the nearest available driver. We are confident that the combined strengths of taxis and cars will result in greater transport efficiency while creating more income opportunities for driver-partners,” said Melvin Vu, Head of GrabTaxi Singapore, Grab.

“For example, with JustGrab, taxi-driver partners have already reported a 30 percent increase in ride bookings and $220 more earnings per week. We want to continue innovating to better serve driver-partners and passengers, and contributing to Singapore’s world-class transport network,” added Vu.

For the month of May, GrabShare taxi driver-partners can enjoy incentives including a 1.5 times fare top-up and zero levy on all shared bookings. Taxi drivers under HDT Taxis, Premier Taxis, Trans-cab, and SMRT are eligible for GrabShare and can opt in for the service following driver trainings.

The Grab platform connects driver-partners to a growing passenger base that uses the Grab app to get around daily. Today, the JustGrab service alone has brought 92,000 additional ride bookings to taxi-drivers – worth over $1.1 million in fares – on a daily basis.