Singapore – With most Singaporeans turning to online services to suit their lifestyle, ComfortDelGro has partnered up with leading e-commerce Lazada to house its taxi services in an additional platform. The tie-up is a first-of-its-kind in the country and will offer its shoppers taxi bookings within the app.

The partnership aims to provide an integrative app experience to shoppers, allowing them to conveniently book cabs while browsing and shopping. Lazada believes that the new offering in the app will bolster its reputation as a one-stop destination for customers’ daily needs. With ComfortDelGro Taxi, meanwhile, it expects to expand its reach by tapping into Lazada’s wide customer base, particularly the younger demographic of shoppers.

As part of the partnership, there will be a six-month-long promotion that gives Lazada shoppers 4% off all ComfortDelGro taxi booking trips. Customers can also enjoy greater savings by purchasing and redeeming rides booked through Lazada using promotional codes from the ComfortDelGro LazMall store.

According to James Chang, the CEO of Lazada Singapore, they are excited to be the first and only e-commerce platform in Singapore to offer customers taxi-booking services within a shopping app, and through ComfortDelGro Taxi, a familiar and trusted homegrown taxi operator no less.

“This will enrich the shoppertainment experience for customers who are already browsing, playing games, and watching live streams on the app, and with the added convenience of booking taxis, customers can utilize one app to shop, play and travel. We look forward to a successful partnership with ComfortDelGro Taxi, to explore more value-adding services that our shoppers appreciate,” said Chang.

Meanwhile, Ang Wei Neng, the CEO of ComfortDelGro Taxi, commented, “It has always been our aim to have our taxi booking services within reach of shoppers. What better way to do it than to have our booking services readily accessible through the Lazada app, one of the most popular platforms today. We hope that shoppers will find the experience – from shopping to traveling – a seamless one.”

Lazada shoppers can start booking taxis by clicking the ‘ComfortDelGro’ tab on the e-commerce app.

Just very recently, ComfortDelGro has also launched its first-ever ‘one-stop’ lifestyle and mobility app called ‘Zig’, which enables its users to book taxis, plan journeys, and find deals, as well as make dining reservations, among others.

Singapore – Singapore’s transport company ComfortDelGro has added a new line of service – a non-emergency transportation service aiming to cater to the mobility needs of the elderly and persons with disabilities (PWD). 

The latest service offering will be provided by its newly-formed subsidiary, ComfortDelGro MedCare, which specializes in the medical escort transport business for the elderly and PWDs. ComfortDelGro will be rolling out a whole new fleet of wheelchair-accessible minibusses. 

Lim Tien Hock, the CEO of ComfortDelGro MedCare, commented that accessibility is a challenge faced by people with mobility issues, such as the elderly and those with disabilities, and that in response, ComfortDelGro MedCare was formed with the aim of not only expanding the company’s transport solutions but also adopting inclusive practices to serve this under-served community in Singapore. 

“ComfortDelGro MedCare will ensure that people with mobility issues can get from where they are to where they want to be, safely and reliably. With such transport options, we can help enrich their quality of life and enhance their connectedness to the broader society,” said Lim.

The minibusses will come with raised roofs and are retrofitted with automatic hydraulic lifts, safety retractors, and forward-facing seats to ensure both wheelchair users and their caregivers can sit comfortably. Each minibus is said to accommodate up to three wheelchairs and five seated passengers.

The new medical transport service is not the company’s first venture into non-emergency patient transport, where in 2018, it acquired Australia-headquartered National Patient Transport (NPT). The company said that now that it has brought the service to the Lion City, it will be leveraging the Group’s experience in Australia. 

ComfortDelGro MedCare ensures that its drivers are trained who can administer first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, as well as operate an automated external defibrillator (AED). The company also said that staff are trained to help wheelchair users and passengers with dementia. Furthermore, the drivers are put through a driving assessment by the company’s own Driving Centre. 

ComfortDelGro inititally has 10 minibusses for the new service, with more to be added as demand grows. Healthcare or daycare centers, medical institutions, social service agencies, and members of the public can book the entire minibus for one-way or two-way trips, or at an hourly rate ranging from S$63 to S$75, depending on the time of their booking. 

During the peak periods, which are weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. SGT and 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. SGT, a one-way transfer is priced at S$113 , while the fare is S$225 for a two-way transfer. Meanwhile, off-peak bookings are available on weekdays from 11:01 a.m. to 2:59 p.m. SGT, which is priced at S$95 for a one-way transfer, and S$189 for a two-way transfer.

All bookings must be made two days in advance via its website or WhatsApp. The payment for the services can also be made online or via PayNow.

Manila, Philippines – Ever since the coronavirus hit the greater civilians worldwide, every country had been caught dead in their tracks; no one had a master plan in hand, and for the longest time since the virus had been birthed, countries – its government bodies as well as businesses are making up their pandemic responses as they go along. 

A strategy that has been resounding across nations is the restriction of transportation services to contain contact, and in the Philippines, the government vacillated since March in coding the nation along four different quarantine levels; albeit unique, all with a directive to halt public transportation.

APAC vehicle-routing tech SWAT Mobility pokes the Philippines during these strange times and seeks to present a solution to the nation’s transpo plight. Amid suspended mass transit systems and almost half to a hundred percent public utility vehicles disallowed, it has left the government imploring companies to implement shuttle services for their employees.

Just like a ride-hailing service, SWAT Mobility operates through a mobile app, but one where its services cater to a group-specific transpo pooling. In a virtual presser Aug. 19, Chief Revenue Officer Nicholas Stipp presents the two options, ‘Commute Pass” and “Just In Time” that companies can choose from to transit their workers.

For companies with staff that have stable shifts and predictable reporting times, “Commute Pass” offers a riding service where bookings are confirmed for the whole month with the same pick-up and drop-off location. “Just in Time” on the other hand, works well with types of companies whose employees have different reporting and knock-off times.

With “Just in Time,” passengers can book a ride up to 10 minutes before departure, where the system collates the bookings and generates optimized routes for the entire vehicle fleet within minutes.

This isn’t the first time that SWAT Mobility has looked into the Philippines as a possible market. Stipp said that around mid of 2019, the Singapore-headquartered company has already tagged the country as a top priority for expansion outside its HQ.

“I started coming [in the Philippines] about a year ago, but the question at that time was, how do we address commuting challenges under normal circumstances. As things have aggressed with COVID, we really accelerated our plans, so we planned to do a trial basis with [workspace solutions company] KMC, and see how things would go, and make sure everything is stabilized. But we have found that demand is just too strong, so we really scrambled in, and now we have multiple clients within a couple of months,” said Stipp. 

Eventually, as the country eased to a more lenient community quarantine, and public transport has been gradually allowed to ply, Filipinos find themselves going back to point-to-point (P2P) buses as mode of transport, aside from the general public utility vehicles (PUVs). P2P buses are buses which have a predetermined single pick-up and drop-off points.

One of the pain points that SWAT Mobility vows to solve with their products is the aching process of arriving at the exact location of work, and thereafter reaching one’s place of home.

According to SWAT Mobility’s data, a person trying to get home from work via a P2P or PUV would get picked up from a common passenger point and be transported to a general drop-off that is still roughly four to five kilometers away from the person’s exact residential, incurring additional rides and more time spent on the road.

SWAT Mobility said that with their transport solutions, passengers are given a “close-to-door” service where vehicles await right outside employees’ workplaces, and each passenger transported to a drop-off point that would only need a person to travel a walking distance of a maximum 300 meters. 

The company had first run a SWAT Mobility deployment for healthcare workers in Thailand in April, and has followed releasing the same mode of transport for workers of state-owned healthcare Philippine General Hospital (PGH).

As of current, PGH is utilizing SWAT Mobility’s “Just In Time” booking,  where a 24-hour deployment is implemented with three shifts of round trips. 

Aside from PGH, workspace solutions provider KMC has also tied up with SWAT Mobility to provide its employees with a Smart Staff Corporate Shuttle; a home-to-office and office-to-home transport for its 15 office sites which launched in July 2020. 

Stipp said in a press statement that the company will continue working with the public and private sectors in the country to further alleviate the transportation burden off Filipino workers’ shoulders, and add resolve to the traffic problems that have always plagued the country.

He said, “SWAT Mobility’s core belief is that efficient transport is a fundamental right and with that, the company’s mission is to improve congestion as well as improve quality of life through a cloud mobility engine.”