The government should loosen supply caps and drivers' onboarding requirements to come up with the 100,000 transport network vehicle services (TNVS) licenses needed to fill 2023's demand for rides.
Grab Philippines Senior Director for Operations Ronald Roda made the statement during a presscon on Friday, February 10.
While the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) opened up thousands of new slots for drivers, 80 percent of applications fail, Roda revealed.
"It doesn't matter how many slots are given if the government doesn't ease up current requirements," he maintained.
First of all, the government should waive the Certificate of Conformity (COC) requirement for second hand cars, which is impossible to get.
"The Public Utility Vehicle (PUV) requirements favor brand new cars. We want existing cars on the road," Roda stressed. "Other ASEAN countrues don't regulate ride-hailing as much as the Philippines does."
Transport authorities should also extend the validity of a car's age to 5 years and lift the caps on vehicles.
"For Greater Metro Manila (GMM), this simply brings us back to the 65,000 supply cap levels pre-pandemic. Our aspiration is to get GMM supply back to early 2020 supply levels," he noted.
Greater Metro Manila includes the provinces of Rizal, Bulacan, Laguna, and Cavite. Here, the TNVS supply previously allowed pre-pandemic was 65,000 driver-partners.
Today less than 20,000 Grab drivers-partners are actively plying the roads of GMM where Grab is present, he pointed out.
Areas outside the Greater Metro Manila, including Pampanga, Albay, Camarines Sur, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, and Cebu, also need additional supply of TNVS.
For the provinces, he estimated some 35,000 TNVS licenses are needed.
“Even at 65,000 available cars in GMM, the fulfillment rate — the percentage of bookings that are fulfilled — never breached 85 percent pre-pandemic, meaning that there was still passenger demand to be fulfilled by the driver-partners,” Roda explained “An oversupply is highly unlikely.”
Outside of Greater Metro Manila, the demand for GrabCar has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, but has shown monthly double-digit growth.
Grab is also expanding its services to other cities, such as Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan.