Cebu City ties up with Uber, Grab

The Cebu City government will try the new systems or technology used by ride-hailing car booking services of Grab and Uber for City Hall employees.

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the new technology would help the city in monitoring its services.

Osmeña was referring to its partnership with Grab Philippines where the Cebu City government would employ the Grab for Work system to organize and track the employees’ transportation expenses.

During the trial period, Grab will gather data on cost per trip, travel time, live map among others. The memorandum of understanding, however, between the Cebu City government and Grab, which was supposed to be signed yesterday (Friday), were moved to a later date as some parts of the MOU had yet to be changed.

Osmeña said the exclusivity of the partnership will be sorted out.

The mayor also assured that when the city and Grab would get into a formal arrangement, productivity would increase and congestion in the City Hall parking lot would decrease.

He said that the MOU would likely be signed next week.

“We are very happy to provide an efficient transportation management tool for the government offices in Cebu City. Grab for Work is open to all businesses, and we look forward to extend the same efficiency and service to private sectors,” said Brian Cu, Grab Philippines country head.

For Uber, however, the Cebu City government has initially registered six government vehicles on the Uber platform yesterday.

The employees of the Cebu City Health workers will pilot the trial for the private car-sharing with Uber.

The program is named uberGov which will not be available to the general public.

“Efficiency is what technology can do, and we want to make and work with the Cebu City government to make it more efficient and people can do their part to help solve the traffic problem here in Cebu,” said Laurence Cua, Uber Philippines general manager.