Grab Malaysia introduces new safety initiatives

The e-hailing taxi service company, Grab Malaysia, introduces three new initiatives to enhance overall passenger, driver and road safety.

Grab Malaysia Country Head Sean Goh said the new initiatives includes Emergency Button, Eagle-i Car Video Recorder (CVR) Dash Cam and Telematics Programme.

For Emergency button, Grab has incorporated a one-touch emergency button in the passenger mobile applications which connects passengers to the national emergency response service (MERS999) in the event of an emergency.

"Grab will log all out-going calls via the emergency button to follow-up with passengers and the authorities, this is the company's commitment to invest resources to develop this function into a smart, comprehensive and efficient emergency button," he said in a statement, here today.

As for the Eagle-i CVR Dash Cam, in 2015, Grab piloted a programme to provide 100 top performing female drivers in Klang Valley with in-car dash cams, Grab is now working together with Eagle-i, Grab''s official Safety Camera Partner to provide free Eagle-i CVR dash cam to 3,500 top performing female and platinum drivers (driver who hit a certain number of rides and uphold a high rating) nationwide, Goh said.

Additionally, the Telematic Programme is a combination of machine learning and predictive analytics which indentifies unsafe driving habits such as speeding, swerving and hard braking or accelerating and educating drivers about ways to improve the driving experience.

"Drivers will receive weekly summary of their driving performance for their reference and further improvement, this programme which was rolled out in June in Singapore has already received very encouraging results to help improve road safety," said Goh.

Meanwhile, Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) chief executive officer Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah said the commission is pleased that Grab has responded to the body's request to include the emergency button in their application.

He said SPAD also appreciated their foward-thinking by imposing new iniatiatives such as the in-car cameras for the safety and convenience of their passengers and drivers and hoped with the introduction of the MERS999 emergency button, passengers would use the function responsibly and the telematics programme could improve general road safety.

-- BERNAMA