Grab passengers reap fare and ETA accuracy benefits from HERE’s High Definition Live Map

Grab passengers reap fare and ETA
accuracy benefits of HERE Technologies’ location data

Southeast Asia’s
leading ride-hailing platform Grab has improved the accuracy of fare
estimations, ETAs and trip routing for its more than 60 million passengers
through an expanded partnership with global map data and location services
provider, HERE Technologies.

Grab drivers and passengers now
benefit from some of the region’s most accurate and fresh map content, thanks
to HERE’s ongoing mission to create the most up to date three-dimensional
representation of the physical world. The cloud-based map, which sees a fleet
of HERE True vehicles continuously map the road network down to 2 cm accuracy,
supports driver safety through automated car features and connected Advanced
Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS).

Jerald Singh, Head
of Product at Grab said: “We are increasingly becoming an active contributor to solving Southeast
Asia’s long-term and fundamental issues: congestion, jobs, access to the
digital economy, and HERE is helping us to achieve that goal as one of our core
mapping and location data partners.”

“Southeast Asia is
developing quickly, with new roads and new rules emerging every day. By
layering local map data on top of HERE’s comprehensive location data, we can
optimise driver-passenger interactions and further streamline our backend
dispatch systems.”

The partnership
will see HERE provide location services in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, which Grab will combine with
real-world on-road data sourced from its 1.3 million drivers – Southeast Asia’s
largest land transport fleet.

HERE will also
provide its extensive Places of Interest (POIs) database gathered through
public sector and enterprise partners such as Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft,
and as well as real-time traffic data sourced from connected vehicles and
devices.

The data-sharing
partnership will overcome the challenges of operating in rapidly developing
countries, such as Myanmar and the Philippines, which have no established
national address system. For example, HERE has almost completed a two year
45,000km mission to create the first ever comprehensive digital map of the
Philippine road network.

HERE’s APAC
Director, Mark Whitmore said: “We’re proud to support Grab’s fast evolving
platform and growing network of passengers, drivers and new service lines with
our robust and flexible on-demand location platform.”

“We look forward to
helping Grab streamline pick-up and drop-off processes, provide reliable ETAs
and ultimately improve traffic management in underserviced cities like Yangon.
The capacity for innovation through this partnership is extensive.”

HERE’s true vehicle
cameras and LiDAR technology capture over 500 different attributes such as road
geometry, speed limits and road signs to create a high definition machine
readable 3D map down to two-centimeter accuracy.

HERE’s Matrix API
forms the foundation of the collaboration, enabling Grab to improve the way
drivers are assigned to passengers. In addition, HERE’s Basic Routing API
provides ride hailers with more reliable ETAs and corresponding fare
estimations.