So a passenger at Sembawang used the Grab app to make a booking, and Grab’s judgment of a “driver nearby” is a driver 23km away.
What Happened
A driver was around Dempsey Hill when he received a $6 booking. It was at Sembawang, 23km away from where he was.
Bear in mind – this is not the actual journey. In fact, it is about twice the distance of the ride itself (Grab’s rates are roughly $0.50 per km, which makes $6 equate to less than 12 km after factoring the per minute rate).
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So that’s three times the time wasted for both parties, and a corresponding amount of petrol spent because Grab screwed up (except they didn’t, read on!).
Fortunately, the passenger was not blind and/or inconsiderate so she contacted to driver, who allegedly tried to reach Grab’s hotline to no avail. He also said that this has happened before, at least in two other occasions.
In the end, the passenger mercifully cancelled the booking.
“Slight delay – your ride is coming soon. (29 min)”
Netizen’s Reactions
This all came to light because the passenger made a post about it on Complaint Singapore Facebook group page.
She ended her retelling of the incident imploring Grab to fix their algorithm for the sake of the drivers and passengers.
Netizens joined in to comment on the situation.
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Most echoed sentiments that Grab should have checked only within a fixed radius and concluded if there were drivers available based on that. Well, this is actually how Grab normally works, which is why people haven’t boycotted it yet.
Others pointed out that it may be a GPS error rather than Grab’s fault.
Grab Explains Why This Happened
It was indeed a GPS error on the driver’s side, despite everyone’s indignant accusations. As mentioned, it was bound to be a bug since this is not that common an occurrence despite the masses of bookings every day.
As reported by AsiaOne, a Grab spokesperson said –
“The driver-partner was assigned to the ride request as his vehicle location was not updated in a timely manner due to an issue with his device’s GPS.”
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“To avoid such incidents, Grab sends our driver-partners regular communications to ensure that their phone device operating systems and their Grab driver app are of the most updated versions. Driver-partners are also encouraged to clear their GPS cache on their phone if they notice any discrepancies.”
So to not encounter this situation, make sure your phone OS and Grab app are updated, and your GPS cache is cleared. Or switch to Gojek.
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