MANILA — Ridesharing firm Grab Philippines has sanctioned some 500 drivers following its investigation of complaints of drivers cancelling booked trips of its passengers.
Grab assured that it will continue to intensify its campaign to purge abusive drivers among its ranks in order to better serve its riders.
“We will never tolerate any behavior that compromises the quality of our service. We see every post and complaint. We apologize that our services fell short. However, we will move forward. We have rolled out additional and stricter measures to address issues on cancellations and this is just the start. We promise to improve to provide the quality of service our passengers deserve,” Grab country head Brian Cu said in a statement Monday.
The ridesharing company said that some of these drivers were suspended for three to five days subject to retraining while others were banned.
Grab only allows a cancellation rate of 5 percent as metric for the incentives of its drivers.
“Those with 10 percent and above cancellation rate per week may face sanctions such as suspension and complete banning from the platform. We assure our driver-partners that we will follow proper investigation and due diligence,” Cu said.
Grab appealed to their riders to maintain minimal and valid cancellations as well as to keep their waiting time for drivers to no more than seven minutes. “While we do our best to further improve driver services, we hope that our passengers would also do their part and exercise the same level of commitment.”
The company has warned its drivers that they will be suspended or banned from the platform if they were found to force their passengers to cancel rides.
For its part, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) will ask Grab to explain why its operations should not be suspended due to the cancellations of some of its drivers.
In a radio interview over the weekend, LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra III said the Board will issue its show cause order to Grab this Monday after a rider posted on social media a screenshot of a driver’s message asking him to cancel his ride booking after he waited for some 20 minutes.
The LTFRB said drivers who refuse to render service will face a fine of PHP5,000 for the first offense, and PHP10,000 for the second offense with impounding of the unit for 30 days.
Meanwhile, PBA Partylist Rep. Jericho Nograles said Grab has yet to implement an order of the LTFRB issued last 2015 that the firm should remove a feature on its mobile app that allows them to refuse passengers.
Grab has attributed the increase in the number of cancelled trips to the suspension of its PHP2 per minute charge by the LTFRB. (Aerol John Pateña/PNA)
