KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3 ― Motorcycle taxi service Dego Ride has a bold plan of empowering the B40 (Bottom 40) income group in Malaysia by employing them as full-time riders.

At the same time, Dego is targeting them and foreign workers as its main customer base, and that the ride-sharing service would be used for those commuting between work and home or to the nearest LRT station.

"Thailand has successfully implemented it, Spain has done it. Several other European countries also are looking at bike ride sharing, why can't Malaysia adopt the same system to fill the gap of B40 earners without any professional certifications.

"A lot of our people are school dropouts. The idea is let’s look at this group, they mostly all have motorbikes as their first investment and mode of transport.That's how we started,” Dego chief executive officer Nabil Feisal Bhamadhaj told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.

B40 for B40

Nabil added that in the long run Dego aims to turn its riders into micro-entrepreneurs by allowing them to operate their own delivery service apart from ferrying passengers.

"Majority of our customers use the service from their doorstep to the nearby LRT stations or from the office after midnight to home. We do the normal morning pick ups mostly from PPR areas, sometimes from local townships too.

"Then we have foreign workers that use us a lot as well. We are starting now to also get tourists using us as well,” Nabil explained.

In order to effectively target the B40 group, Nabil said that Dego uses a Whatsapp-based platform to communicate with its customers rather than having a specific mobile application which would not be as easily accessible.

"The idea for the Whatsapp system was simple because a lot of people using our service is from the B40 group. They are not rich people with a lot of data to waste or having awesome fast hand phones that can support heavy apps.

"We don't want to miss the lowest of the low from using the service. We know 99 per cent of Malaysians use Whatsapp, so that's why we came out with the system,” he said.

The motorcycle ferry service was launched in November last year and has so far around 5,000 riders under the company. Offering a charge of RM2.50 for the first three kilometres, the service claims to be the "cheapest ride service in town” and has so far over 20,000 bookings. .

The taxi service however has come under fire from authorities after Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said it was illegal and ordered the Road Transport Department (RTD) to take action.

This has not deterred Dego as Nabil says the company has yet to receive an official notice on the matter.

"The Transport Ministry or RTD has not served my company an official letter for retracting our services from the public.

"Since the Road Transport Act 1987 does not include or allow motorcycles as taxis explicitly, we would like to work with the government ... because we are a similar platform that empowers the demand and supply to allow the taxi services to take place,” he said.

Nabil also pointed out that currently Dego does not make a profit from ferrying passengers as cash it goes directly to the rider and the company only makes money from a separate delivery service.

"From rides nothing yet, we use our delivery portion to earn. We earn around 20 per cent for an average delivery,” he said.

How Dego works

Dego allows only motorcycles that are less than five years old to operate, with the condition that it cannot be modified and it has to be below 250cc. To identify riders, Dego provides them with visible stickers to be pasted on their helmets.

Dego also puts its riders through a stringent vetting process first to make sure they have no previous criminal or driving offences on top of them having proper credentials and full insurance coverage.

As for ensuring the riders and passengers safety, Nabil claimed Dego has its own type of insurance coverage which has a maximum payout of RM1,500.

"We also have our own sort of insurance coverage, in case of anything. It's sort of a claim package, we give RM500 for the rider, passenger and motorcycle each. That is a payout of RM1500 if anything happens,” he said.

Despite Putrajaya's crackdown on Dego, Nabil remains optimistic that the motorcycle ride sharing service is here to stay and urged Malaysians to try it out without any prejudice.

"People are afraid but they are communicating with us. A lot of them are giving us support but not appearing publicly as they are afraid of their identity being revealed.

"Come in with an open heart, mind and clean slate. If you have all the proper documents and willing to be a rider, we will accept and train you,” he stressed.