Drivers complain about InDrive’s poor navigational system

More and more drivers are expressing their ire at the poor navigational system of ride-hailing service InDrive, which is slashing their income due to incorrect directions provided by the company’s application.

In an interview on Friday, a 57-year-old InDrive driver, withheld in the name of ‘Eugene’, narrated how poor the navigational service of the company has been in the past months.

“Marami kaming nagrereklamo dahil laging kaming pinapaikot sa mas malayong ruta. Aksaya sa gasolina. Minsan may hinatid ako sa Espana, nakarating kami ng Malanday, Marikina. Nagbayad pa ako ng Skyway para makarating lang yung hinatid ko sa pupuntahan nya,” according to Eugene, a resident of Hermosa, Tondo, Manila.

InDrive leverages Google Maps Platform to power its navigation within the app, which includes features like route planning, real-time traffic updates, and location tracking, Google stated.

Aside from that, the driver, who is just renting the unit and paying a P1,300 per day ‘boundary’, lamented that because of the long and erroneous routes being given to them by the app, it is eating up several minutes for them to reach the passenger’s pick-up destination.

“With this, most of our customers are cancelling their requests. If we cancelled it, we automatically lost 15 percent of the ride, sayang. Yung dating P1,200 na kita, minsan nagiging P700 at P800 na lang dahil sa gasolina. Sana maayos ang problema, nababawasan ang kita namin dahil sa unreliable navigational system nila,” the driver stated.

Drivers also highlighted the unfair assignment of the locations of their bookings, where at times it will take 20 minutes just to pick up a passenger after their last drop.

Unlike its competitor, Grab Philippines uses its own navigational tool, GrabMaps, which began as a tool for internal use in 2017 and became the app's primary navigation tool in 2022.

Asked for comment, InDrive’s external public relations team said the issue is being raised with the InDrive management and emphasized that the company has been working on the issue already.

Aside from that, InDrive remains clinging to cash and e-wallets in collecting payments, as it does not have its own cashless payment service.

InDrive earlier reported that they have reached a driver-partner base of 20,000 as of the first quarter of 2025 and are aiming to increase it by 30 to 40 percent by the end of the year.