My Uber Experience in Singapore

Life without Uber soon During Friday's night on the 5th May 2018, I drove Uber for more hours than I did in my whole journey with UBER. I started ubering at 8pm till Saturday 6th May 2018, 12pm. I knew I was going a bit crazy......... till the point that the uber's driver app prompt me to perform a selfie for verification. I was lost, I didn't really know what I should do after Uber's gone on the 7th May 2018. Some of my passengers, they were concerned. Most of them asked me, what you gonna do after Uber is gone? Especially this one Caucasian guy from Bulgaria , he asked me during the trip, "I heard there will be no more Uber in Singapore after 7th May 2018, so what are you going to do?" "I'll go sweep the floor." Jokingly I said. But seriously, I said that because I don't really have an answer for that question. For the past years, I thought I found my freedom with UBER , however, I didn't expect i...

What? Extend again? Most Uber drivers and riders were caught off guarded when Uber announced that it will extend it's operation in Singapore till 7th May 2018 . Wasn't the deactivation date on 15th of April 2018 ? Well,  the extension of Uber's operation till 7th May 2018 was actually a requirement by Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) due to the following reasons: throughout the years of uber's operation in Singapore, uber has collected significant amount of trips' data and if Grab were to utilise it for it's own benefits, it might form a great barrier of entry for competitors which inevitably might consider a monopoly of the private hire vehicle (PHV) industry. During this interim measure period, Grab is also require to make sure that previous uber drivers "migrating" to Grab platform will not be subject to their "exclusivity" (meaning that drivers are only allow to drive in Grab's platfo...

15th April is the last day for Uber? Every drivers already knew that UBER will be gone on 8th April ever since the announcement that GRAB had bought over UBER's South-East Asia operation . However, some might still not aware that the "death" of Uber will be extended till 15th April as the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore   (CCCS) is reviewing proposed alternative interim measure. So, what does that means? It's mean that the CCCS has the reason to believe that GRAB might be monopolising the Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) industry, which might have infringed the Competition Act in Singapore . Good news for both the drivers & riders Most of the drivers and riders felt relieved about the extension of Uber's departure in Singapore. This is so because the riders are worried that if Uber were to leave Singapore, GRAB might be using this opportunity to hike up the ride's fare. As for the drivers, most of them espe...

What a luck! It was just few more days before there's no more ubering in Singapore . However, before I could end the ubering journey with UBER, my car decided to call it off first. My car tyre went flat on me 2 days ago. As I thought that it might be an issue which is not self-inflicted by me, I decided to send it to LCR's authorised car workshop at Wcega Plaza. Because this is not the first time that my car failed on me, I was not that worried as it is not as bad than the previous time . Luckily I did send my car to the workshop as not only my car tyre got problem, my car's bearing also got issue. Therefore, it took me about 3-4 hours just to get the bearing serviced. After it was serviced, the drive feels much smoother, no wonder my mood was so bad as the severe vibration caused my back to hurt terribly and my ratings became worse. Bad luck do come twice! This morning, while I was preparing to go fetch my first passenger of the day, I noticed that...

April Fool's Joke? Most of you already heard about the news announced this morning on 26th March 2018 that Uber is acquired by Grab . Which means that now Grab will owns the whole of Uber's South-east Asia's business and in return, Uber will get 27.5% stake in Grab. So no, this is not an early April fool's joke. This is for REAL! It's the end for Uber drivers? Those existing Uber's drivers will still be able to use Uber driver's app till 8th April 2018 . So from now till then, probably this is the time Grab will decide how they are going to "integrate" together. For those previously got banned by Grab and came onto Uber's platform might now consider going to Grab office at Midview city to get themselves unbanned (Warning! Large crowd expected there). Since Grab has officially bought over Uber, it's just a matter of time Uber drivers starts to learn how to use Grab driver's app. All good things will come...

Uber drivers want riders to know that: Sometimes misunderstanding arises because riders do not understand UBER drivers' perspectives. There are certain areas which we as UBER drivers wish riders know about us so that not only it won't affect our 5 stars rating, it could prevents future conflicts too. These are some of the areas which we hope riders will know: 1) It's not that we don't want to pick you up or drop off at the bus stop, we are just afraid that we will get issued a fine by the authority ( We are not suppose to stop our car within 9 metres at the bus-stop ) 2) According to the traffic rules and regulations, we can't pick you up or drop off within "TAXI YELLOW BOX" (Yes, we will get fine too!) 3) If you are bringing a pet (dog, cat, hamster whatever that can fit into our car) with you for a ride, please book uberPET and just make sure your pet don't dirty our car ( We ❤️ your pet too, but we need to keep our...

A chat with ComfortDelGro taxi driver As a uber driver who accept more UberFLASH trips than uberX trips nowadays , it really puzzle me why most of the ComfortDelGro taxi drivers find that  UberFLASH  request not appealing to them . In order for me to find out the reasons, I purposely flag a ComfortDelGro taxi at the airport to northeast side of Singapore. But before I took a ride with ComfortDelGro, I intentionally check the price in Uber's rider app.  The upfront fare shown was $17. After I came out from Terminal 2, Changi Airport Arrival Hall at Door 8-9. I saw there are some taxi waiting just right at the roadside. Therefore even without having to wait, I immediately flag for the taxi driver (ComfortDelGro). And on the way I asked him why most ComfortDelGro taxi drivers don't want to take uber request? So his first reply was "this is a collaboration between ComfortDelGro company and Uber company, we (ComfortDelGro taxi drivers) don...

Women are great drivers too! In general, most of the time men thought that all women are bad drivers. When we heard news that woman driver crushed their car into the long kang ( a.k.a drain) due to a cockroach, people will tend to make the news go viral (especially men), as they want to show prove that men are superior drivers than women! As time went by, due to it's "deep seated root culture", this kind of thinking becomes a norm that all women are a bad driver as compared to men. However, this is not true! There are also woman driver who can drives far better than most of the men and vice versa. Women nowadays have far more contribution than men as not only they need to take care of the family, they also need to help men put breads on the table. Therefore, it is very important for each and everyone of us on the road to show respect to one another irregardless of gender . Lastly, wishes all lady uber drivers here a happy internation...

Ubering after a year! Time flies, it was about a year now ever since I started ubering one year ago. I started then when UBER introduced the free rental and free petrol via UFC (Uber Flexi Club) platform. During that time, I was using the car from Smove . It was an hourly rental platform, however during that promotion, we are able to rent the car for FREE for a week. Likewise for petrol, we can claim it and get it for FREE too. Those were the days.......... Right now, I'm renting LCR car as after my 5 weeks contract with them ( FREE rental also as I won a lucky draw ), they gave me some rebates which I thought it was worth it to continue the rental. Also, during CNY, I opted in to distribute Ang Baos to 20 selected riders. I felt like a Chinese Santa Claus ! And these are the best wishes from the lucky riders who have taken my rides during CNY! Zoom in to view! It was very enjoyable to see all these well-wishes! Not every drivers will get to dist...

Superb Navigation Skill of a Taxi Driver It was consider a partial peak hour which I usually start my ubering in the morning at around 0930am. This time round, I got a request from NEX, Serangoon (one of the hottest request area in the northeast side) "Please go to Genting Lane via Wan Tho Ave ", said the lady who just came on board. "Sure, no problem!", I said it with confident as I know where exactly this location is. However, when I take a look at Uber's GPS , it was prompting me to go MacPherson road from Upper Serangoon road as shown below. The usual route from nex to genting lane as shown by google map (same as uber navigation) As I usually "switch off" my brain by following Uber's GPS when I'm ubering, I asked the lady out from my curiosity, "How did you know about this short cut?" "From taxi driver! They are the best!" the lady said blissfully. "Usually, in the mor...

PDVL EXAM Yesterday 29th January 2018, I just took my PDVL exam. I was very nervous as I told myself I do not want to waste time and money to retake again. Therefore, just one day before ( which was Sunday) the exam, I studied real hard. I studied all the highlighted portion (which our trainer, Ken told us to highlight) and also did the online mock papers . As I was told by someone that there are total 4 sets of paper per exam , so in order for me not to miss out any of those, I did multiple times of revision online . Basically, the online platform which you can do your PDVL exam revision is @   TP Tests   and the PDF copy of   the FAQ private hire car driver's vocational licence commencement can be found here . One of the methods as told by our Purely Uber Drivers Group Chat member for Paper 2 revision is to try to practise till you get perfect score consistently because it is all about factual stuffs (demerit points, fine, suspensio...

LCR Car breakdown It seem to be another normal day as I picked up one Aussie passenger from his condo to his workplace.  However, on that particular day 22nd December 2017 (few weeks ago), my Toyota Sienta decided that she needs a "break", so just right after the traffic light had turned green, she decided not to move anymore. I did a few attempts to "wake" her up, but she insisted on having a long rest.  Therefore without having much option left, I have to call for LCR car servicing @ 6262 4620 , my passenger also has to get out from my car and request for another uber driver. "What a bad day!" I said to myself But I can't just leave my car alone there. I need to do something about it without leaving her strand on the road. Luckily, I still remember what I have learned during my car driving lesson days (thats was about 20 years ago!). So, immediately I went behind my "car booth" to look for the red...

Credit: Pixabay Experience with the pilot rider I thought it was just another usual night while ubering in Singapore. Usually, it's pretty common for us; uber drivers to fetch passenger like pilots or air stewardesses. However, this time round, the experience was different. And below is the conversation between the pilot and me: Pilot: Why do you guys (drivers) enjoy stepping on your accelerator intermittently? Do you know that you jerk the passenger forward and back? Me: I didn't enjoy doing that, Sir. I was controlling my speed according to the road speed . You do know that Singapore's road has a lot of speed camera , don't you? Also, I'm trying to maintain my fuel control in the "ECO" mode in order to save fuel (one of the highest expenses in our "business cost") Pilot: Nah, all of you are being trained to drive like this. Traditional taxi drivers are even worse! Nowadays, I don't even take traditional t...

Unusual Promo Code "FOMOPLAY" Some of you might already know what does " FOMO " stands for. As for those who don't, let me explain; FOMO basically is an acronym stands for " Fear Of Missing Out ". It could also means " anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media " as explained by dictionary. So what's so special about FOMO and why am I talking about it? Well, most uber drivers have observed and commented that these few days were exceptionally quiet. For most of the entire days, its either no surge or no request (aka no ping) at all! So for those full-time uber drivers, how are they going to hit their target? Luckily, uber promo code "FOMOPLAY" is coming to the rescue! For the entire 12 hours (9am - 9pm) 28th Dec 2017, you will get $5 off "unlimited" uber rides. Once you applied the promo code " FOMOPLAY ...

It's all about the  journey!   If you ask me, have I ever thought about doing something else beside ubering , I would be lying to you if I said "NO!" Lots of time, I feel like giving up being a uber driver and perhaps do something else. The thoughts come more frequent especially when my incentives get very low that I think literally it's not worth my time to drive anymore and this was made worse when I had bad encounters with nasty passengers.  However, once a while, when I looked at all these comments below given by my passengers, it really keeps me motivated and going. Uber riders' compliments Some of the 5 star comments can be quite interesting too ; such as "Don't forget to go to church", "This driver deserves a 6 star" etc. Of cos, it's really great to get positive and motivating comments from riders. However, I think sometimes in order for me to improve my ownself, probably I woul...

Breaking down the cost Being an uber driver is not easy. "Well, who told you that being your own boss is easy?" However, now instead of being paid per month, you are being paid weekly! But, there will be expenses like rental, petrol, car wash etc. We all know that one of the highest cost on the road as an uber driver is your petrol . So, how can we use it to our advantage effectively and efficiently? Well, one of the first step is to determine your car's fuel consumption rate . For example, if you are driving a 7 seater Toyota Sienta   (non hybrid) , you will roughly know that if you gas up $50 based on $2.17 per litre from Esso today, it will roughly travel for a distance of 300km. Which is $0.167 per km for the cost . Let's round it up to $0.20 (because in business, we want to use the best scenario approach) So, if you are able to get an earning of $1 per km (according to experience this is at least above average good earnings), you will b...

Is there any ON / OFF switch for surge? For those uber drivers who have drove for quite sometimes, probably already knew that the surge can be turned ON or OFF by UBER . This was experienced by most drivers when there was a SMRT disruption happened weeks ago. As many passengers were left being stranded, Uber quickly turned off the surge "button" and offer drivers a 1.5x fare for those drivers who's able to pick up passengers along north-south line. Is uber drivers being manipulated by the surge? Some people argued that surge are being controlled as he had experienced it personally by driving into surge zone but not getting any surge request. "How could that be?" you might wonder. Or "Yes! I experienced it too!" you might proclaim. So what's the truth? Well, till now, from the horse's mouth, surge is not real time and surge is depended on the demand at the location when the rider requested the ride . Should I go fo...

Application of uberAssist training After we took up the uberAssist training , I wonder when will I ever have chance to pick up any uberAssist request. And as usual, law of attraction always work! Finally I got one and I'm going to show everyone how it really looks like and why personally I think it's good for the Uber drivers with uberAssist qualification . When the uberAssist request came in, it will looks like this (same as the above screen, except rider's name was being blocked out in the above picture). The request came in as per normal as other request, just that at the bottom of the PICK UP , you will notice that it is a uberAssist request. So when you see this, probably you will be expecting picking up a rider with some form of disability, high chance the rider will be wheelchair bound . So without much hesitation, I wanted to put what I have learned into good use. I went to the exact location, and true enough, I saw one lady with another...

Is the economy that bad? Is the economy that bad that even the CEOs start driving Uber? You probably have heard that profession like teachers, lawyers, doctors, bankers etc start driving Uber. Is the economy that bad? or all these guys just do it for fun? For those veteran drivers, they have been enjoying the ultimate freedom that Uber gives them. But for CEOs to give up their millions dollars salary just to drive Uber? That doesn't make sense! What are they up to? Uber CEO Kalanick Argues With Driver Over Falling Fares Some of you might still remember the news about the CEO of Uber, Kalanick argues with driver regarding about the fares which keep getting worse as shown in the video below: And true enough! Uber's fares have been getting from bad to worse for weeks in Singapore! So is it true that some of the drivers actually are Uber's directors or management staffs? Or CEOs from companies with affiliate interest? Are they just trying to hav...

Ex-Uber driver shared his experience It was past midnight when I decided to go out for a few drives. As I was able to set up to 4 destination trips , I set my first one to city area (usually where the high surge area). After a short while (probably it's weekend night), I got a request from upper Serangoon area, as usual,  I just went and pick that fellow up and proceeded to his destination; Adis road. A single guy booked for UberX at this timing, (hmm..... must have something urgent to attend to.....) After I dropped him at Adis road, I'm still contemplating where should I set my next destination? "Should I set to go back home, or continue to go further down to city?" While I was self-talking in my mind, another request came in again. The rider was just few metres right behind me! "Wow, so lucky!" I thought to myself. When the rider came on board, both of us were quite surprised. "Hey Sir, it's you again!" I asked. ...