Grab Malaysia’s country manager Sean Goh said there were indications that even more taxis were embracing its service.

He said it had introduced the JustGrab service, which allocates each booking to the nearest vehicle — taxi or private cars.

“JustGrab now accounts for over 70% of Grab bookings as of September this year.

“We are proactively working with the more progressive taxi associations,” Goh said in a statement.

For example, Goh said, there was an increase of 156% in the number of taxis using its service in Langkawi over the past three months.

He said the taxi drivers could earn RM4,000 a month (after deducting Grab’s commission), adding that 60% of taxi drivers’ idle time could thus be filled with JustGrab.

Goh said the taxi community would also be able to take advantage of several extra benefits, such as cheaper fuel, road tax, tolls and excise duties.

“We sincerely hope that, in the spirit of fostering a truly fair, level playing field, these benefits would also be extended to the hundreds of thousands of private car drivers.”

He was responding to a recent incident where a small group of angry cabbies had called for the abolition of all e-hailing services during a dialogue session with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in Langkawi.

They claimed their livelihood had been hit hard by the competition posed by private vehicles using the Grab e-hailing service. They also claimed that their customers had been “stolen” from them.

Goh said Grab provided new income opportunities for all.

“More than one in 100 Malaysians have earned an income on Grab’s platform and more than one in 10 people in Malaysia now have better access to safe mobility.”