Grab Philippines asks LTFRB to maximize 65,000 TNVS slots

February 26, 2020

Grab Philippines on Wednesday urged the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory (LTFRB) to maximize the 65,000 transportation network vehicle service (TNVS) slots due to a slump in the number of active drivers.

“Our main goal of urging the LTFRB to maximize the current supply cap is for us to be able to service the ride-hailing passengers more effectively, and to hopefully avoid the December 2019 situation from happening again, where commuters are unable to get a car for hours or worse left stranded during the holidays,” Grab Philippines country head Brian Cu said.

Cu said the additional supply will replace thousands of drivers who churned out and service the estimated 5.2 million ride-hailing passenger bookings forecast starting March 2020.

Last December 2019, where there were around three million booking requests to be served by 35,000 TNVS drivers. This led to many commuters waiting for hours to get a ride.

Without additional supply, Cu said passenger allocation is expected to fall  throughout the rest of 2020.

"We're seeing an increase in demand already bit-by-bit on a weekly basis, so again if the active daily supply doesn't go up, by March and April that 70 percent (passenger) allocation will come back down to 60 percent,”Cu said.

"Even if the supply stays steady, we're losing maybe 1,000 drivers a month,” he added.

As of February, Grab Philippines has at least 33,000 active drivers in its platform, a 2,000 reduction from December 2019.

“Out of the 55,000 slots, 7,000 to 10,000 are inactive, We have requested to take that and recycle those slots,” Cu said. DMS