SINGAPORE — Unwilling to pay a S$36 fare on ride-hailing app Grab for a trip from Holland Village to Thomson on a rainy evening last Saturday (Nov 10), freelance writer Natasha Hong turned to her rarely used Tada app “not hoping for much”.

There was a surprise in store for the 31-year-old, as the price of S$16 indicated on the app was less than half the price compared to its rival firm.

While she did not think that any driver would pick up the cheaper rush hour ride, Ms Hong got a ping in a jiffy. The private hire car driver who turned up was “a really lovely guy”, which genuinely surprised her as she had tried the app a handful of times since its July launch, and it had never really worked.

After that early hiccup, she said she would not have been surprised if Tada had just “closed quietly”, as she did not know of any friends who used it frequently.

Short on choices to avoid Grab’s surge pricing, a number of commuters like Ms Hong are increasingly turning to Tada as an alternative.

They cited the tolerable waiting times for a match to a ride — down from 40 minutes at times to around 10 minutes — as a reason for their conversion. Some users have even reported that it now takes less than a minute to secure a ride.

Mr Zac Chua, 27, founder of snack company The Kettle Gourmet, said that Tada’s service has improved slightly. From a wait of between nine and 12 minutes previously, he now takes about five to six minutes to get a ride.

But Tada’s biggest selling point is definitely its cheaper fare prices, particularly with commuters here griping about having to fork out more for their Grab rides after rival firm Uber’s exit in May. As a result, some users told TODAY that they have adopted it as their go-to app whenever they need a ride.

The app’s increasingly popularity among users is reflected in its sign-up numbers, as Mr Jonathan Chua, general manager of Mass Vehicle Ledger, the company behind Tada, said that they are seeing between 1,000 and 1,500 new user sign-ups daily, up from about 600 a day previously.

Its driver numbers have also seen healthy growth, with about 19,000 private hire car drivers now on board to serve its 110,000-strong user base. This is significantly higher than its initial year-end target of between 2,000 and 3,000 drivers.

The ride-hailing firm is also making its move into taxi bookings, as it launched Tada Taxi on Thursday, a new mobile application with a pool of 2,000 cabbies. Tada Taxi will not take a cut from drivers, nor will it impose any levy on the booking fees set by the respective taxi companies.

RIDE SAVINGS A WINNER

When the Tada app was first launched here more than three months ago, users experienced a number of teething issues when attempting to book rides on the platform.

One user who only wanted to be known as Mr Faizal installed the app when it was launched on July 26, but had to give up when he tried unsuccessfully to book a ride seven or eight times over a week. He eventually resorted to using Grab.

These days, it has become “a bit easier” to secure a ride with Tada, and the 35-year-old civil servant now uses the app at least three times a week.

To date, his best value-for-money ride was when he paid S$17 travelling from Hougang to Jurong a few weeks ago, saving S$7 on a ride that cost S$24 on rival app Grab as there was moderate surge pricing on a Friday.

For a number of users, the cheaper fares have outweighed the longer wait times on the Tada app.

Mr Jeremy Koh, 26, a business development executive, turned to Tada due to the “insane” prices he has seen on Grab in recent months. Fares were pegged at S$50, and even went up to S$80 on occasion.

The first time he used Tada, he waited 25 minutes to get a S$24 ride from Clarke Quay to Sengkang at 1am. Grab was charging S$46.

The second time he used it, he “almost gave up on the app” after waiting more than 40 minutes for a cheaper S$7 ride from Sengkang to Hougang.

But he persisted with Tada as prices “don’t fluctuate much” as compared to Grab. The biggest price difference he has seen between both firms was for a 11pm trip from Plaza Singapura to Sengkang, with Grab quoting S$39 while Tada charged S$20.

Mr Koh is also using Tada because he is unhappy about Grab “monopolising the market” after Uber’s exit, pointing out that Grab no longer gives promotional codes.

“I am hoping for the other players to become bigger and thrive in the market to prevent a monopoly,” he said.

While users are happy with Tada’s cheaper prices, they also wonder if these fares are sustainable in the long run.

Ms Hong pointed out that while her Tada driver pocketed S$16 from her ride as the app does not charge drivers commission, he would have earned more on Grab. A S$36 ride on that platform would have seen him taking S$28.80 if he had paid the maximum 20 per cent commission.

She said: “Are the 19,000 Tada drivers also Grab drivers, or on other apps? There is no way that a driver on both Grab and Tada would pick the lower Tada fare.”

Ms Hong does not think that drivers will continue on Tada due to the lower earnings, as she added: “It’s useful in that you get an alternative service to try, but I still won’t put my hopes in getting too many rides from them.”

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