Image credit: techcrunch.com
Having changed the concept of car ownership in Southeast Asia, Grab has jumped into the bike and e-scooter market with the launch of GrabCycle Beta. Rent-a-bike concept has been picking up in Singapore, with people preferring to rent a cycle to get from point A to point B or even for their daily exercise regime instead of owning and maintaining one. A number of players are operating in this space but until now, they had been competing without collaborating.
GrabCycle promises to be a marketplace app where riders can choose between various players and pick the one they prefer. Bikes will be offered from companies such as oBike, GBikes, Popscoot and Anywheel. This will be Southeast Asia’s first bike-sharing marketplace app. Currently in the beta stage, the company proposes to launch the app across other regions in due course of time.
With the growing popularity of bike-sharing companies, Singapore is grappling with the issue of indiscriminate parking of these vehicles. Riders often leave the cycles in undesignated spots in a disorganised fashion. In order to address this problem, Grab has partnered with Sentosa to create pre-designated parking stations to encourage riders to leave their bikes neatly lined up. Sentosa is the first such GrabCycle Venue Partner and we can expect many other tie-ups in the future with other Venue Partners. Grab has also partnered with YCH, the largest homegrown supply-chain solutions company in Singapore to manage vehicle parking and rebalancing.
The app is a pilot project under GrabVentures which is responsible for pushing the envelope when it comes to innovation in mobility and payment concepts. GrabCycle will also be integrated with GrabPay to offer seamless payment options. Riders will earn Grab Reward points for each dollar spent.
One in five car commutes in Singapore are under three kilometres, suggesting that there is a large potential market for bike-sharing companies. Cycling is space efficient as well as environment friendly, besides being great for one’s health too. GrabCycle app will be available for download in the first half of 2018.
