No more late-night bookings with carpooling service GrabHitch from October 2018

SINGAPORE — Ride-hailing company Grab announced on Tuesday (Sept 25) that it will no longer be accepting GrabHitch bookings from commuters during the late-night and early-morning hours from October onwards. This comes a day after Singapore's competition watchdog concluded its investigations into the Grab-Uber merger and found that both parties have broken competition laws.

In a notice that was sent to its users through the company’s mobile application on Tuesday, Grab said that it will stop its carpooling service during 1am to 5am from Oct 1 onwards, as it wanted to “improve the experience and safety of its community of drivers and riders”.

It added that all other services, apart from GrabShare, will still be available to commuters during this period.

While both services allow passengers to defray their cost of travelling by splitting the fare with fellow commuters who are heading towards a similar destination, GrabHitch is operated by private-car owners, and GrabShare vehicles are driven by commercial drivers.

On June 4 this year, Grab announced that it was stopping its GrabShare service to commuters during those same hours for similar reasons.

Responding to queries from TODAY, a spokesperson from Grab said on Tuesday that the GrabHitch service will be taken off between 1am and 5am following feedback from its drivers about the disputes and tension they have with carpooling passengers during those hours.

“Grab has always taken a proactive approach to ensure that our drivers and passengers will have a positive and safe driving or riding experience.”

The spokesperson added that before coming to this decision, the company had been receiving consistent feedback from its GrabHitch drivers about negative experiences when they pick up passengers during those hours, such as drunk passengers vomiting in their cars, or passengers arguing with them.

Drivers who offer the GrabHitch service told TODAY that they were not too upset by the latest announcement.

While 46-year-old Liu Yi Shun has not encountered any unruly drunk passengers in the more than two years that he has been a Grab driver, he has had carpooling customers arguing over who gets sent home first.

“During those hours, conflict isn’t good,” he said.

Another driver Sofhi Leong said that the shutdown at night will not affect her because she drives mostly during the day.

“It’s really not an issue. Those are my sleeping hours,” the 60-year-old said.

Ms Anita Lo, who frequently relies on GrabHitch past midnight after outings with friends, said that it will soon cost her more to get home because she will have to rely on either Grab’s other services or take taxis.

The 32-year-old bank manager is not convinced that Grab’s decision is about safety, considering that it came just a day after the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore fined the firm about S$6.4 million for its “anti-competitive” merger with Uber.

“They just want us to use their more expensive JustGrab service,” she said.

However, commuters who need late-night transport do have cheaper options, such as those provided by homegrown ride-sharing firm Ryde.

Facebook user Liew SC commented on the Facebook group PHV Riders and Drivers Singapore - Grab Ryde MVL: “Passengers can still go for Rydepool, so (I’m) expecting Rydepool (to) have a big jump (in new) riders.”

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