Today when we talk about dedicated public transportation in Malaysia, Klang Valley, guess what the latest trend. Yes, it is about GrabCar and Uber. In this post, i am going to briefly discuss what it is all about and the differences between both of them.
What is GrabCar/Uber?
GrabCar and Uber is actually a platform for both rider(customer) and driver matching the transportation needs through mobile app. Customer enter their pick-up and drop-off locations through the app. After submitting their request, the application will search and match for an available driver/car nearby which can accommodate their request. The difference between these 2 platform and a taxi is the way of acquiring the ride. GrabCar and Uber are acquired via mobile app request which only take less than 3 minutes usually and will fetch you on your pick-up location! While taxi are to be hailed from the streets in order to get a ride or calling to taxi centre for taxi booking.
Why should you ride on GrabCar or Uber?
Well, both of this platform are very well known to most of us but some are still really wondering what are both of these are really about? Are they a taxi companies or car rental service?
To answer to the question above, they aren’t a taxi company nor car rental services. In short, both of them leveraging on their powerful platform to match their customer and their drivers to fulfil the need of the customer to travel from point A to point B.
There are numerous reason why we should use these platforms. I am going to depict some of the most common one based on my research.
- Match and Go! Customer do not need to make an advance booking to travel. All the customer need is just a smart phone with the app installed and registered and you are ready to travel.
- Fare are transparent. Do you have a feeling that you will be charged with expensive fare when you hail a taxi for travel? Do you actually ask if the taxi fare will be based on meter or a lump sum charge? Do you have the feeling that the meter is altered to charge higher? With both of these platform, rest assured on the travelling fare of not having a boom charged. Although there are some different between GrabCar and Uber changing rate, both of them has eliminate the surprise charge rate for the travelling fare. GrabCar is providing a fix rate of the travelling fare while Uber has some variant depending on the traffic, peak hour and the time taken to reach its destination. As similarity, GrabCar and Uber charges can be cash and credit card. Both of them will generate a electronic receipt which will be sent to your registered email account and this is great for employee whom can use it for their claim.
- Your travelling is recorded. In case of anything happened to customer or driver, there is a trail which you can follow because both driver and customer information is recorded. In another word, travelling using both of these platform is much more secured compare to taxi. Besides that, driver rating is rated based on customer feedback. Factor which will affect the driver accreditation include car cleanliness, hospitality of driver, safety of driving, etc.
- Better car! When i say better car, it mean it is newer, cleaner and private. GrabCar and Uber driver is using their own private car to fetch their customer to their destination. GrabCar and Uber driver are bound by the policy which the drivers’ car need to meet certain condition before becoming their drivers. These requirement included are:
- Malaysian Driver
- Car below 7 years old or needed inspection if older than 7 years old
- GrabCar minimum car size would be Perodua Axia and Uber would be Perodua Viva.
- Promotion. Both GrabCar and Uber platform is providing a lot of promotion from time to time. You might want to stay tune on my next blog or forum for all the promotional code available for GrabCar and Uber from now onwards.
