Uber Macau: ‘Ride-sharing should be regulated for the city’s sake’

Trasy Lou, general manager of car-hailing application Uber in Macau, perceives the company’s ride-sharing service would not only benefit local residents but also tourists and even the city itself. Despite the operation being lambasted ‘illegal’ by the SAR Government, the Uber executive told Business Daily in an exclusive interview that she believes the authorities will eventually realise the worth of Uber and regulate its service.
Uber has been operating here for almost six months, since October 22. How is the app’s popularity faring?
When we first launched, riders were able to get a car [via Uber] within 20 to 30 minutes whilst there were not many places with Uber cars around. But now, riders can probably get a car within five to ten minutes in most places. This is a very important indicator showing how successful we are. We’re very happy with the progress we’ve made so far. In the past five months, we’ve had a lot of touching stories from our riders and drivers, [which] I think is something good for the local community.
How many drivers and users in total does Uber Macau have?
Well, we’re not able to really disclose those numbers…
Can the current supply of Uber cars fulfil demand?
I’d say that we’re always striving to increase both supply and demand at this moment. As we keep growing, for sure we’ll grow to a point where we don’t have sufficient [amounts of] one for the other. But in Macau, there’s always demand, as we have 30 million tourists coming every year, in addition to almost 700,000 residents. What we will do is make sure that Uber is a transparent platform for our driver-partners. In fact, everyone can be our partners. I’m not so worried about whether we would not have enough supplies to grow with the demand, but whether we can fulfil our drivers and have more join us. Nevertheless, for now, we’re quite good in balancing both.
Who are the major users of Uber Macau at the moment?
Based on our observation, most users are [young people]. Meanwhile, there are a lot of elderly who can’t really stand on the street or go on the bus [who are] using our service as well. These elderly are around 70 to 80 years old. It’s usually their children hailing Uber cars for them so that they are able to get out from or go to the hospital. Another major group of users is pregnant women as they usually find it hard to stand on the street or to get on the bus. In addition, many locals that don’t drive or find it hard to look for a parking space use Uber. As such, Uber is quite popular among people in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties.
Good service comes first
Is it hard to recruit local driver-partners?
To be honest, I don’t see a lot of difficulties. To give you some idea, our drivers can be categorised into three groups – those who want flexible working hours so that they can pursue their actual dreams; entrepreneurs who may not earn as much as they used to due to the economic downturn and now use Uber as a platform to earn more money; causal drivers who actually feel very fulfilled by contributing to the local community.
Of course, money is one of the factors driving drivers to join Uber. But for some, they feel [joining Uber] can actually contribute to society by helping the elderly or pregnant women get around the city more conveniently. Hence, Uber provides drivers many benefits – not just monetary ones. Meanwhile, we’re a very flexible platform that everybody can join anytime they want, and they can also quit anytime they want.
How does the company ensure the service provided by its driver-partners is good and safe?
We hold very high standards for our drivers. For example, all our drivers need to go through background checks, which means that they need to submit a criminal record from the government. That’s the basic requirement for drivers to become our partners. The second is that they need to be locals and they cannot have any drink-driving record. In addition, we have a pretty good rating system – if anything happens to riders during the trip, such as the driver driving too fast, they can always report it to [email protected] about the experiences and we can educate our drivers on what they could have done better. This is how we close the loop – by having a good rating system, having good background checks. We feel we are responsible for the safety of our drivers and riders.
With the increasing number of Uber drivers, is it getting more difficult to control the quality of services provided by various drivers?
I wouldn’t say it’s getting harder. But we need riders to tell us which driver is good or which driver is bad. That’s why we have the rating system. When we actually have bad drivers, such as those making serious mistakes, they will not be able to get back on our platform no matter how much we need drivers. We uphold very strict standards. Regardless of how many drivers we have, we will not change that standard. Or regardless of how much we want drivers to join us, we won’t change it. As good service is one of Uber’s selling points we won’t change that.
Legal battles
Recently, legal complaints have been filed with the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) . . .
The complaints are still in progress. I’m not in a position to talk about that because our legal team is still working on it. And it’s quite sensitive to disclose information as it’s still in progress.
Nevertheless, regarding legality, we’ve actually been working with the government, we’ve been meeting legislators. We want the ride-sharing industry to be regulated. We want it to be regulated in a way that actually works for ride-sharing. For example, Uber is in over 400 cities. In a lot of these cities, governments there found that Uber is actually benefiting their people and they’ve implemented regulations for ride-sharing after Uber has operated for some time; examples are Singapore, Australia and the Philippines.
What is encouraging is that the Chinese Ministry of Transport has said it would work with ride-sharing applications, such as Uber, Didi and Kuaidade to understand how ride-sharing [services] can be regulated in China.
So Uber Macau is actually in negotiation with the government? Or is it just meeting with legislators?
We’re basically meeting different key people in Macau. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose who we have met but I can say that the responses from these people are quite good. Our job is to make sure they understand our business, and how it can be regulated to benefit the city and local residents.
How do you see the government’s current enforcement against Uber drivers?
As long as we believe in the product and the benefits it brings citizens I believe that [the resistance] is just a process [of the government] to understand the benefits of Uber. As I said, we want locals to get around the city very conveniently. After launching our operations for five months, we’ve seen that we benefit tourists as well. So far, we have users from over 150 cities who have taken Uber in Macau, like those from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Taipei and more. Uber can really enhance the tourism industry of Macau. With Uber, tourists don’t need to wait in line on Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro for an hour just to get transportation.
But are you confident that the SAR Government will implement regulations for a ride-sharing service?
I would say ride-sharing is the trend. When we look at the past, we didn’t have [private delivery service companies] such as S.F. Express and DHL in Macau. We only had our official postmen delivering our mail. Because of the mentioned companies making the process more efficient, it [the private service] is regulated. I think we’re going to repeat history in that way. Even China is now moving in that direction. Macau is part of China; I am confident that Macau will go in that direction one day as well. But the question is just when.
Some taxi drivers feel their business is threatened by the operation of Uber in Macau . . .
As I said, Macau has 30 million tourists, as well as nearly 700,000 residents. But we only have around one thousand taxis. The buses are not enough, especially for peak hours and weekends. Uber will be an alternative transportation option, especially for locals. To be honest, we’re very focused on the local market right now. Our ultimate goal in Macau is to make sure every local can call a car in five minutes, in any part of the city, even in Coloane. That’s the mission that we’re going for. Taxis are more focused on tourists. They can always line up at casinos and get some customers. We’re here to complement that and fulfil the [other] demands in the market.
In that way, would you see that the government’s re-issue of special taxi licences, aka radio taxis, is bringing competition to Uber?
What the government is doing is to achieve the same goal we are – which is to ensure that locals and tourists can get around the city very conveniently. But the radio taxis will only number around 100 or so . . .
Still not after profits
Are your promotion strategies – such as the reward scheme for drivers to introduce more drivers, or the discounts regularly offered to riders – effective in terms of attracting more users?
Yes, they are. One of our missions is to partner with local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the Uber platform. For example, we’ve teamed up with Original Technology to offer Apple products; we have co-operated with Hello Kitty Obrigado to promote their egg tarts.
For me, as a local, I really want local brands to be promoted among the locals as I found them usually not big-scale companies, while we are a good platform for them to promote their products. This is one of the marketing strategies that I would like to continue doing as it really helps SMEs to grow.
Is the company’s profitability affected by these discounts or marketing strategies?
At the moment, we’re not really looking at making a profit but how to make the city better. We’re looking at making sure everybody has the chance to try, looking at building our awareness among locals. So we haven’t really looked at profits, especially when we’ve only been operational for some five months.
Uber also recently teamed up with Club Cubic to provide discounts . . .
Yes, we did partner with Club Cubic because we want to promote safe driving. I understand that people still drive themselves when they go to karaokes or clubs since it’s so hard to get around the city. That’s why we partnered with Cubic on New Year’s Eve so that riders could get home safely. In Seattle, in the United States, cases of drink driving have reduced by 10 per cent since Uber was launched there. I want to make this happen in Macau as well. There are so many people that die because of drink driving. With Uber, we can reduce that number.
Any upcoming co-operation with local companies you can share with us?
We’re actually in talks with a few right now. But we cannot disclose their names as it’s not yet confirmed.
What about future plans for Uber’s operations in Macau?
As mentioned, our plan is to enable every local to call a car within five minutes anywhere in Macau.
The second plan is to help people with disabilities. Uber has a service called uberASSIST. All drivers for the service will be trained by hospital staff on how to take care of seniors and people with disabilities, such as those in wheelchairs. Hong Kong has just launched this service. When the Macau market becomes more mature, this is something we want to do as well.
The third plan is Uber launched technology a few years ago to allow deaf people to drive to earn more money. This is quite interesting. After the first two plans, we aim to team up with the Macau Deaf Association to help local deaf people learn another way of making a living.
The fourth goal is to ensure tourists can get around Macau pretty conveniently. It’s quite bad to see tourists spending one hour in Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro to come out to Taipa. This is not good for tourists, not good for Macau and not good for the tourism industry. So we want to build the awareness of Uber Macau among tourists as well. But this plan can only be focused after local residents fully embrace the product. I’m a local; I want locals to enjoy the benefits first.