These is the screenshot of the Uber app

If we listen to the press releases and pronouncements of mobile ride-sharing app Uber and Grab, they make it sound like their services is so important that commuters cannot live without them. They make it appear that the commuting public will have no way to travel if the government decides to completely shut them down.

Strangely, when Free Spits decided to ask around, we found out that this is not true!!!

“A JICA study shows there are 21.5 million rides that happen in Metro Manila alone everyday. These are multiple number of times a commuter takes public transport everyday, about two to four times a day. It will be too expensive to take Uber and Grab for these commuters.”

Commuters use public transport from two to four times a day. And TNVS’s are far too expensive for them to use everytime. (photo from the web)

According to a study by JICA, that Japanese institution that does a lot of studies about almost everything, commuter rides in Metro Manila alone have a figure of 21.5 million rides a day!!! A day!!!

This is not about the total number of commuters but about how many times that individual commuter uses public transportation in a day. These are commuters using bus, jeeps, tricycles (and their variations), taxis and, yes, Uber and Grab cars.

About a fourth of the 21.5 million rides happen on the Light Rail Trains spread across the metropolis. (photo from the web)

Taking the data that Uber and Grab gave the government the last time they were asked to submit information, both Grab and Uber said they log an average of 150,000 rides a day. Combined, this would amount to 300,000 rides a day for both TNC’s (Transport Network Company.)

Now take the number of commuters from JICA and the number that the two TNC’s gave and fraction them out and you will see that for Metro Manila alone, Uber and Grab services only 1.39% of the total number of rides that happen in a day!

One percent! This is the figure that comprises the richest people in the country, the top 0ne percent!!!

This means, even if Uber and Grab shut down operations tomorrow morning, the riding public would not even feel their absence.

Only the upper one percent of society would. Wait! No they won’t! Because that number belongs to those who have their own transportation and use the app only because they don’t feel like driving.

I am not trying to create a class war here, alright?

I am merely pointing out that based on the figures above, the operation of the Transport Network Vehicle Service (TNVS), the technical term for the cars that service the TNC’s (Uber and Grab), is not a moving factor in the lives of the real commuters, those who actually have to use buses and jeeps and taxis and tricycles, because they cannot afford their own car.

So why do these TNC’s (Uber and Grab) seem to have so much influence in our riding public?

They don’t!

It is manufactured noise created by the TNC’s to push their business. Because it is a business and the revenues are in the millions everyday.

So the next time you see a post about how important the operation of the TNC’s are to the riding public, look at the number 21.5 million as opposed to 300,000, and tell me if they are telling us the truth.