Executives of a new ride-hailing motor taxi service—JoyRide—on Thursday vowed to stay fully compliant with the guidelines of the Department of Transportation’s technical working group in their pilot test to ensure the safety of both passengers and the bikers.
At a news conference in Quezon City, JoyRide vice president for corporate affairs Noli Eala said they have well-trained bikers who are fully equipped with safety gear, and that they have accident benefits for their commuters and riders as well.
“We have been preparing for months before we applied last September before the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board. We have invested in our training facility and manpower, partnered with an insurance company for the riders and commuters, and complied with the guidelines of LTFRB and the technical working group for this extended testing for motorcycle taxis,” he said in a statement.
Moreover, Eala said “we do not have price surge even during peak period of Christmas.”
A JoyRide fare is even much cheaper than its competitor—Angkas, he cited.
As an example, a commuter could save P6 taking a ride from Makati City to SM Mall of Asia, P13 from Makati to Project 6, Quezon City compared from the other ride-hailing motor bike service, he cited.
“In some instance, a passenger could even save a difference of P132 against its (JoyRide) competition,” he said.
JoyRide is owned by Ralph Nubla Jr. and Bea Chua, who are “established businessmen with interest in real estate, banking and finance, and wholesale and retail industry,” and that it is being run by Richard Aruisu, a bank expert for 30 years; Rico Meneses from a safety training center; Sherwin Yu, an information technology expert and JoyRide president, and Edwin Rodriguez, who is into the logistics and trucking business, he said.
“Those in the business are reputable businessmen who just want to help the riding community,” he added.
He maintained that “there should be no monopoly… not of business, but of ideas.”
“This being a study right now of the government. No one has monopoly of ideas,” he said.
“In other words, there must (be) a point of comparison for the government to use in crafting the urgent and necessary legislation, amend the law and allow the motorcycle taxi service,” he stressed.
The government has allowed JoyRide to operate in three months in Metro Manila.
According to Eala, JoyRide has 1,493 activated drivers operational on the streets, and that by January, it would have 7,000 riders and in February, 10,000 riders.
“We have 5,414 onboarded bikers waiting for their gear with a total of 6,907 riders registered with the technical working group,” he said.
He said they were compliant with the guidelines of DoTr, “hoping the government will allow us to run beyond the three-month pilot period.”
Yu denied that JoyRide is owned by Senator Christopher Go.
“That is fake news,” he told the conference.
When asked, Eala admitted they sent a letter to Senator Aquilino Pimentel III seeking an endorsement in September last year.
“That (letter) did not help. I don’t think it really helped (us) since our application was just approved much later on. I don’t believe anybody acted on that letter,” he said.
He said they were giving their 100 percent support to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and the Duterte administration in their study whether to allow the operation of the mobile-app motorcycle taxi service.