Grab to roll out feature that will hide passenger destination from drivers

Starting April 27, some Grab drivers will no longer see passengers’ destination before accepting bookings, Grab Country Head Brian Cu announced on Tuesday.

Grab Philippines will be initially rolling out the new feature to 25 percent of Grab drivers with historically low acceptance rate. Meanwhile, an auto-accept feature for bookings will be fully rolled out on Friday.

Cu, however, said that an option to see passengers’ destination would be available to drivers during the wee hours of the morning for “protection” purposes.

“We will implement non-showing of passenger information before ride acceptance, as it is a major source of complaints,” Cu said in a statement.

Cu, however, maintained Grab’s position that the main reason for the difficulty in booking a ride is the lack of cars.

“We want to vastly improve our services; hence, our consecutive decisions to sanction 500 errant drivers over the week, and now the non-showing of the passenger destination and the auto-accept feature,” Cu said.

READ: Grab punishes almost 500 drivers over unjustified booking cancellations

Cu said Grab Philippines sought the advice of Transportation Undersecretary Tim Orbos and Assistant Secretary Mark de Leon on the implementation of the new features.

In addition, passengers would be required to provide correct and complete account information. They can also link their account to social media platforms.

“We will never compromise safety and we will always put the welfare of our drivers and passengers first. We thank our drivers for understanding the masking of destination feature. We hope that our passengers will do their part and verify their accounts for safety and proper identity,” Cu said. /ee