Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced a pioneering set of mobility services "Total-care Service," specially designed for ride-hailing companies. Working with ride-hailing companies, Total-care Service will enable Toyota to leverage onboard telematics data through a shared information platform and provide services such as fleet management, automotive insurance, and vehicle maintenance packages, aiming to expand the use of ride-hailing vehicles and enhance the driving experience for end users. Through this Total-care Service, ride-hailing companies can provide their driver-partners with more cost-efficient and timely maintenance services.
Singapore will see the first service roll-out, with Toyota Motor Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. (TMAP)―the sales & marketing regional headquarters of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) in Asia―offering the Total-care Service for 1,500 Toyota vehicles owned by Grab Holdings, Inc. (Grab) through its subsidiary GrabRentals.
In June 2018, Toyota invested US$1 billion into Grab to advance mobility services in the region. The Total-care Service is a result of a deepening partnership between Toyota, a leading automaker transforming itself into a mobility company, and Grab, the region’s leading O2O mobile platform.
The Total-care Service is an innovative, world’s first service developed specially for ride-hailing companies. Working with ride-hailing companies, like Grab, Toyota can leverage onboard telematics data through a shared information platform to provide services such as fleet management, automotive insurance and vehicle maintenance packages to extend the life of ride-hailing vehicles, and enhance the driving experience for the end user. Through this Total-care Service, Grab is able to provide its driver-partners with more cost-efficient and timely maintenance services.
TMAP and Grab will offer this service to Grab-owned Toyota vehicles across Southeast Asia in phases. In addition, both companies will work to increase the share of Toyota vehicles in Grab’s fleet in the region by 25% by 2020. In the future, Grab will also seek to implement Toyota’s world-renowned Toyota Production System (TPS), a system based on a philosophy of eliminating waste, to improve Grab’s business operational efficiency.
In general, ride-hailing vehicles accrue five times more mileage than privately-owned vehicles. To keep vehicles in a good and safe condition, it is essential to provide proper vehicle maintenance based on the vehicle’s condition. At Grab, driver-partner and passenger safety is a top priority. By ensuring that Grab’s driver-partners are driving vehicles that are receiving timely maintenance, Grab is able to provide the highest level of safety on its platform.
In October 2018, Grab unveiled its ‘Safer Everyday Tech Roadmap’, comprising product enhancements that aim to raise transport safety standards for the industry in Southeast Asia. As a result of continuous efforts to improve safety on the Grab platform, Grab’s incident rates have decreased by 40% over the last year since Q3 2017.
The partnership with Toyota will complement Grab’s analytical tools that allow drivers to understand how they drive and where they can improve. Grab driver-partners regularly receive telematics reports on their driving patterns like speeding, acceleration and braking, and more parameters will be added over time. Since the rollout of telematics on the Grab driver app last year, there has been a 50% reduction in speeding incidents and 20% reduction in hard braking and sudden acceleration, which are potential causes of road accidents.
Ming Maa, President of Grab, commented: “We are excited to work with Toyota to roll out the Total-care Service to our Grab Rental fleet. The ability to meld data analytics with vehicle maintenance will make our rental fleet even safer for our driver-partners, and go toward achieving our goal to raise transport safety standards in the region.”
Susumu Matsuda, TMAP President, said: “We are starting this world-first Total-care Service here in Southeast Asia, making full use of Toyota’s strength such as our philosophy of Toyota Production System and vehicle connectivity technologies. I believe the service will support the sustainable growth of Grab’s business and help offer even safer and more attractive ride-hailing services.”
Through the Total-care Service, driving data is collected by Toyota’s in-vehicle data-transmission device, TransLog, and sent to the Mobility Services Platform (MSPF), an information infrastructure developed by TMC for vehicle connectivity. Grab, Toyota and its local dealers will use such vehicle data collaboratively to achieve a safer and more secure ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia. For example, using vehicle data, Grab will be able to provide its driver-partners with support and advice for safety as needed. In addition, the Toyota dealer will apply TPS to vehicle maintenance for Grab-owned vehicles.
In addition, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance, a Toyota’s affiliated insurance company, will offer telematics-based automotive insurance to GrabRentals, allowing for safer driving and insurance premium reduction.
In the area of vehicle maintenance, based on driving and vehicle condition data, maintenance schedule for each vehicle will be optimized. Furthermore, Intensive Care Stall (ICS) has been implemented at Borneo Motors (Singapore) (BMS), the authorized dealer of Toyota in Singapore. Making use of TPS knowhow, ICS achieves ultra- efficient maintenance service which will reduce vehicle downtime and maintenance cost.