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Full Story Reviewed about Uber Driver’s Life in Penang!

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Have you ever wonder what is the life behind as Uber driver?

Is it dangerous to drive along with other strangers in town?

What if I bump into fellow taxi drivers and they start to beat me up? Is the Uber earning really that good?

How can I make my riders happy?

What if the passengers are unhappy and give me a bad rating?

These are the list the questions I ever pop up before I register myself as Uber driver. Same like you guys, I was worried if it is safe to become a Uber driver since this is the first time I am going to use my car to earn money!

I am excited yet worry at the same time. Yet, I took the action and registered myself as Uber driver in Penang in 2015. Registration to become an Uber partner is easy. First, a user must own a personal vehicle, that is less than 5 years old.

The user can then register himself/herself for FREE and entitle to receive RM300 ONLY from link! —>

Uber Partner Referal Registration Link

Do not worried for some of you with the vehicle that is more than 5 years. If your vehicle is more than 5 years but still in perfect condition, then you are will be accepted as Uber Partner as well. Once the registration is completed, user can receive an invitation email from Uber for account activation as below image:

Uber account activation email invitation

The driver required to bring along their vehicle insurance cover note, driving license and IC for documentations and verification purposes. After the documentation procedures have done, the Uber’s staffs will share about how to use the Uber app and share to us how to get the rating of “5 stars” from Uber’s riders.

The meet up was pretty fun and partners get to know a few new friends from the meeting 🙂

Uber Partner Application — Uber Partner App

After 2 weeks of waiting, drivers then will receive notification about their Uber Partner account is activated; and the driver can get started their very first Uber driver experience!

There are several hotspots in Penang where Uber drivers able to get higher chance of picking the riders. Those hot spots are Tanjung Bungah, Georgetown Light Street, Bayan Lepas Industrial Zone.

I personally encourage drivers to hunt riders around Light Street, and Batu Ferringhi. These 2 areas are popular spots as far I as experienced. Uber drivers have to set “ONLINE” status in the app in order to pick Uber riders around the city.

Uber Partner App Online Status — Uber Partner App “Online” Status

The Journey

I drove around different places and I get to meet different people that using the Uber service. Most of the Uber riders are friendly as well, and 70% of Uber riders that I picked were tourists while 30% only from local.
A lot of them have bad experience from using the public transports, thus they opted to use Uber service instead.

Here is the example of the screenshot wherever there are Uber’s passenger is looking for Uber driver from the Uber Partner app:

On the sideline, Uber driver also has the option to pick or not to pick the riders. But in order to qualify for the incentive program from Uber, Uber driver has to accept at least 90% most of the trip from the riders. From above image, the Uber driver is 4 minutes drive time away from the riders.

My Uber driver in Penang story:

In fact, I was worried during as the first timer Uber partner. The adrenaline rush activated when I received beep from Uber rider (above screenshot) while I was driving around the Bayan Lepas in daytime. Quickly, I drove my car to the pickup point, which was located at the Putra Place Condominium.

HOW TO SIT PROPERLY IN THE CAR — This is the looks of how Uber partner drive their car 🙂

When I reached the Putra Place Condominium, the pickup point set by the rider was set in one of the units of the condominium, but I wasn’t able to get into the condominium because the Putra Place’s guards disallowed me to drive my car into the compound. So I have to give a call to the rider instead and told him that I will be waiting for him at the condominium entrance, and he is OK with it.

Keep the doors and windows locked until the Uber riders arrived

*** For safety purposes: I kept my car locked until the Uber passenger knocked my car window before I unlock my car. Once the rider get into the car, I do the ice breaking conversation.

I introduce myself and we talked about Uber-related topics. I usually introduce them the best place to get nice foods around Penang island. *Sam, the Uber passenger (not his real name) prefer to use Uber instead because the service is convenient and cheaper 20% compared to a normal taxi ride. We able to have good conversation until we reached the destination set by the him. He left and rated my service with 5 stars!

Uber's driver rating 5.0 — **Uber’s driver rating 5.0**

Uber’s Fact: Once the Uber driver accepted the beep, the Uber driver has to pick up the riders else he/she has the risk of being de-rated for bad rating from the riders. The Uber app able to navigate the driver to the rider’s pick up location. Once the rider is picked up, the driver has to swipe to the right on their Uber Partner app to start the trip, and charges will be made to the rider from the app according to the distance and time of the journey.

Uber driver picking up passenger — Uber driver picking up rider

Uber Partner application sync well with 3 navigation systems to assist the Uber driver to reach the destination:

Google Maps
Waze
Uber own navigation app

Here is another experience from me: In the car, some riders are quiet and some are talkative.

It pretty fun as I get to meet different people while I was driving my car around the town. I picked a lot of riders from Singapore, and I found they are friendly person. Most of them came to Penang Island for a holiday.

Awaiting Uber Passenger in Batu Ferringhi McDonald — Awaiting Uber Rider in Batu Ferringhi McDonald

Driver tips: Driver just have to assure their smartphone’s battery stay alive throughout the journey.

**Tips of day: Keep the charging devices and cable in the car 🙂 Once the driver reached the selected destination, the driver has to swipe to the right to end the trip and the auto-calculation will be done from the Uber Partner app.

The transaction was done in cashless, thus there is no cash required between driver and the riders.

Here is another story: One of the most memorable in my Uber driver journey has I met 2 Guangzhou and a Hong Kong tourists who came to visit Penang for a holiday. I picked them up from Sungai Nibong bus station, and driving them around the town to show them our Penang city and must EAT foods places! They are excited to be around in Penang for the first time! And they even treated me a bowl of Hokkien Mee at Green House Prawn Noodles, Georgetown:

How lovely they are! This is one of the best experience I had as Uber driver 🙂And yeah, sometimes we have to wait for the riders to beep us at the roadside as well. The waiting duration usually is between 5 min to 30 minutes. That time, we have to wait for stupidity there for the Uber beep to trigger us 🙁

Kelvin Ang sleepy face — Sleepy face during waiting for beep from Uber riders

So what are we doing during the waiting time for the Uber passengers to beep to us?

We drive our car aimless around the city
Stop our vehicle at petrol station, beside the “mamak”, or roadside
Sleep in the vehicle
Scroll facebook endlessly in the vehicle
Smoke in the car (some of us?)
Call up friends, and pretend we gonna meet up them cause we are there accidentally
We crap in our Uber Drivers Wechat Group 🙂
Snap thousand of car photos, like what I did? LOL

Toyota Vios GT Street and Black TRD Wheels Sideview

Below is one of the breakdowns of the Uber fare after every Uber trip:

During peak time, 6am to 9am and 5pm to 8pm or festival season, there will be surge around the cities and Uber partners able to earn much more!

Surge Area in Penang on Uber Partner App

Above highlighted area showed 2.1x surge, which means the fare that earned by the Uber partners during surge time are multiple by 2.1 times! And the overall fare of the week of my very casual drive time (I only drive after working hours, and just spend 1-2 hours each of driving time. Moreover, I don’t drive during surge time else I going to much more!):

Below is the overall the fare for 33 trips:

Uber take 20% of the total fare as their profit. But drivers are still earned some decent income, and they had fun along the journey just like I did! Here are some of our friendly Uber drivers in Penang during the meet up with the team:

Open Session meeting with Uber drivers in Penang 3

Uber driver can meet different people and chit chat with them along the ride, and it is definitely a fun way to earn money from the car! A lot of our Uber partners earn up to RM5K per month in Penang, and RM8K in Kuala Lumpur!

A post shared by Kelvin Ang (@kelvin_ang87) on Jan 14, 2016 at 9:41am PST

So, what are you waiting for? Register to be your own boss, drive your beautiful car around the town and have fun with the Uber riders, and get ADDICTED to drive around with your beloved car and most important is GET PAID only from this link! –>

Be your own Boss Registration Link

SPAD are officially approving Uber as legal transport service in Malaysia, of course with some regulations that yet to be finalized. Don’t forget to hit ‘Like‘ at the bottom of the post and share this post to your pals who are looking for extra income and fun with the car and meet new people!

Last but not least, and please hit the above link and register yourself and be your own BOSS!

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