MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Smart mobility technology firm SWAT Mobility (SWAT) and Toyota Motor Philippines launched the first corporate smart transportation solution in the Philippines for KMC Solutions (KMC), the country’s largest coworking & staff leasing service provider. SWAT’s solutions allow KMC employees and clients to book rides through the SWATBiz app, plan routes in minutes, navigate drivers to close-to-home pick-up points and track vehicles in real time. The system works together to automate many manual tasks, taming the chaos of manually planning and tracking vehicles so that employees can get to work safely and efficiently.
Faced with the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, KMC recognised that its operations would need to adapt to the new normal. The company created a Home-Hub-HQ Workspace Solution to address the growing work setup challenges during the crisis. KMC implements safe distancing and sanitisation measures at its facilities, but realised that employees would still struggle to get to its locations with limited public transportation. According to Alex Gomez, Vice President for People and Culture at KMC, “We implemented shuttle services for our employees and clients, but found that our administrative staff were spending nights and weekends taking bookings, planning, chasing vehicles, and manually reporting. SWAT’s solutions are perfect for addressing our immediate challenges and will allow us to offer sustainable employee transportation benefits in the long term.”
SWAT’s technology tames Metro Manila’s notorious transportation chaos by taking bookings through its passenger app, instantly calculating close-to-door routes according to daily demand, navigating drivers to passengers via the driver app, and tracking all system activity through its administrative interfaces. SWAT automates 90% of the previous manual work in managing a corporate shuttle fleet while increasing fleet efficiency by 20-30%.
With SWAT’s system, employees track their bus to their pick up point and no longer need to line up and wonder when they are going to get home. Additionally, employees will not have to worry again about braving the infamously long lines at Metro Manila’s rail stations or packing themselves in overflowing jeepneys.
The system is well-aligned to address challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines. Only authorized employees may book rides and board vehicles, vehicle capacity controls set by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) are enforced through the applications, and records are kept in real time to enable contact tracing and real-time reporting.
SWAT launched its first services in the Philippines in May together with the Toyota Mobility Foundation as part of DOTr’s Free Ride for Health Workers Program. This well-received program has provided thousands of close-to-door rides for critical medical workers. SWAT continues to work with the New Mobility Business Division of Toyota Motor Philippines to roll out SWAT’s technology to KMC and other local clients.
“I’m excited to work with an innovator like KMC as our launch client for SWAT Mobility in the Philippines, in collaboration with Toyota,” said Nicholas Stipp, Chief Revenue Officer at SWAT. “KMC recognised early-on that SWAT services can make a huge impact in hiring and retaining staff; the epidemic has only reinforced and accelerated the need for smart employee transport.”
While KMC is the first corporate client, SWAT expects to launch many projects in the Philippines over the coming weeks – both for private and public transport. SWAT is working closely with local partners to scale up operations to serve high demand. Jarrold Ong, CEO at SWAT Mobility adds, “Deploying in the Philippines is especially meaningful because we can directly impact people’s lives by significantly reducing their commute time. Intelligent transport solutions like ours help fill the gaps in urban transport systems; when applied on a larger scale, we can improve congestion levels and quality of life for people in the Philippines.”
