Booking wizard: Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) head Triawan Munaf (center), Blue Bird Group Holding director Sigit Priawan Djokosoetono (second left) and singer and author Dee Lestari show the latest version of My Blue Bird mobile application on their smartphones during the launch of the app in Jakarta on Thursday. The app allows customers to identify nearby Blue Bird taxis and make advanced bookings. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

After sealing a cooperation deal with motorcycle-taxi-hailing application Go-Jek, the publicly listed taxi operator Blue Bird launched on Thursday a new version of its booking app to lure more customers amid growing competition from other taxi-hailing mobile applications.

The app, now available from Android Google Play and the iOS App Store, is quite similar to those provided by competitors like Grab and Uber, in which customers can order taxis through smartphone clicks, track the availability of taxis and give ratings to drivers.

Customers could also opt for different types of carriage. In the app, the choices are Blue Bird, Blue Bird Van, Silver Bird and Silver Bird Van.

Despite the similarities, the application — called ‘My Blue Bird’ — gives more options to customers to choose their desired pickup time, as well as to order more than one taxi at a time. The system is now available in Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung, Medan and the island of Bali and will become gradually available in other cities nationwide.

As of now, the taxis only accept cash for payment, but the company’s director, Sigit Priawan Djokosoetono, said the application would be improved gradually so that in the future it would be able to accommodate non-cash payments.

“We will add features, such as non-cash payment promotional codes,” he said during the application’s launch in Jakarta, adding that old ordering methods — through calling and stopping taxis on the sides of streets — were still available.

The new application, a rejuvenation of an older version launched in 2011, is designed to enable Blue Bird to better compete with ride-hailing taxis, such as Uber and Grab, which have significantly eaten into its market in Jakarta and other big cities.

Early in March, thousands of drivers from existing taxi operators, including Blue Bird and Express, launched massive rallies in Jakarta to urge the government to stop the operation of the app-based taxis, which they said operated illegally.

However, the government refused to do so and instead planned to issue a regulation that will legalize their operation.

Sigit said the application was expected to maintain and add more customers while Blue Bird’s increasingly popular mobile-based competitors are coming near to receiving operating permits.

“Technology has changed the way business works. Now it is a must to innovate and monitor the market, because everything could change dramatically in only five months,” he said.

The operation of the app-based taxis severely hurt Blue Bird’s business. In the first quarter of the year, the company suffered a 38 percent decline in profits year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 139 billion (US$10.3 million) from Rp 224 billion.

Aside from cooperating with Go-Jek and launching the app, last month the firm also made an effort to attract more customers by lowering the base fare by 15 percent to Rp 6,500 from and Rp 7,500 and the per-kilometer fare to RP 3,500 from Rp 4,500.

Meanwhile, Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) head Triawan Munaf, who also attended the launch of the new application, said in order to survive in business, big long-standing companies like Blue Bird needed to improve. “For another player [in the industry], I think it is now time to innovate as well.”

However, Munaf said good service was still the most important aspect in the transportation industry. “No matter how advanced the technology is, if a company cannot serve its customers well, they will fall behind.” (adt)

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