In a city where a five-minute delay can be the difference between keeping or losing a customer, ride-hailing is often won in the invisible layer behind the app: maps, traffic data, dispatch logic and estimated arrival times.
Singapore-based Ryde is now trying to improve that layer through a strategic partnership with HERE Technologies, the mapping and location data company. The two companies said in a joint statement that Ryde has integrated HERE Location Services into its platform to improve driver matching, routing accuracy and ETA predictions across Singapore.
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The deal is not about adding another button to Ryde’s app. It is about making the core ride-hailing experience less uncertain: assigning the right driver, choosing a more realistic route, and telling riders more accurately when their car will arrive.
For Ryde, which is listed on the NYSE American under the ticker RYDE, the partnership comes as competition in Singapore’s mobility market remains intense. For HERE, it is another example of how location intelligence is becoming a key infrastructure layer for transport, logistics and quick commerce platforms in Southeast Asia.
Why routing still matters in a small city
At first glance, Singapore may seem like a relatively easy market for routing technology. It is geographically compact, highly mapped and supported by strong public infrastructure. But the reality for ride-hailing operators is more complicated.
Traffic conditions can shift quickly around expressways, Central Business Districts, schools, malls, industrial estates and housing towns. Roadworks, peak-hour congestion, rain and event-related traffic can all distort estimated arrival times. In ride-hailing, those distortions matter because the platform has to make decisions before the trip begins.
If a system assigns a driver who appears close on the map but is separated by a difficult junction, a congested slip road or a slow-moving arterial route, the rider waits longer and the driver loses time. Multiply that across thousands of trips, and small mapping errors can become operational costs.
Ryde said the integration of HERE’s routing engine and real-time traffic intelligence is aimed at improving dispatch decisions, ETA predictions and navigation through changing road conditions. HERE’s tools use live traffic data and route optimisation algorithms to support more accurate trip planning.
“At Ryde, we’re constantly investing in technologies that improve every journey for both riders and drivers,” said Ryde CTO Nitin Dolli. “Our partnership with HERE strengthens the intelligence behind our platform, enabling more accurate routing, smarter driver allocation and better ETA predictions.”
The hidden economics of better ETAs
For riders, ETA accuracy is a convenience issue. For platforms and drivers, it is also an economic one.
An inaccurate ETA can lead to cancellations, lower trust and poorer driver utilisation. If a driver is sent on a longer-than-expected pickup route, the time spent reaching the passenger is time not spent completing paid trips. If riders are repeatedly told that a vehicle is arriving sooner than it realistically can, they may switch to another platform.
This is why ride-hailing companies invest heavily in what may look like routine back-end upgrades. Driver supply, demand forecasting, route calculation and pricing are all linked. Better routing can help platforms reduce idle time, improve matching and make the app feel more reliable without necessarily increasing the number of vehicles on the road.
In Singapore, that is particularly important because the private-hire and taxi market operates within a tightly managed transport environment. Unlike some larger regional markets where platforms can scale supply more aggressively, Singapore’s vehicle population is shaped by high ownership costs, regulatory controls and strong public transport alternatives. Platforms therefore have to compete not only on price and incentives, but also on reliability.
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HERE’s Southeast Asia and India General Manager Abhijit Sengupta said ride-hailing platforms depend on accurate location intelligence to keep people and businesses moving. He added that the partnership with Ryde is meant to improve driver utilisation, reduce uncertainty and deliver a better end-user experience.
Ryde’s broader mobility play
Founded in Singapore in 2014, Ryde began with carpooling and has since expanded into private-hire rides, taxis and delivery. The company describes itself as a “super mobility app”, although in practice it operates in a market where the dominant players have much broader ecosystems spanning payments, food delivery, advertising and financial services.
One of Ryde’s key differentiators has been its 0 per cent commission model for private-hire and taxi drivers. Instead of taking a cut from every completed ride in the way many ride-hailing platforms do, the company has sought to position itself as more driver-friendly. That strategy can help attract and retain supply, but it also means Ryde has to be disciplined about other parts of its business model, including technology costs, operational efficiency and customer retention.
The HERE partnership fits into that context. A smaller ride-hailing player cannot always outspend larger rivals on subsidies or marketing. But it can compete by making its service more dependable in specific markets. In Singapore, where users often compare wait times across multiple apps before booking, even marginal gains in pickup accuracy can matter.
The collaboration also reflects a wider shift in Southeast Asian mobility. Ride-hailing platforms are increasingly expected to support adjacent services such as parcel delivery, food delivery and quick commerce, all of which rely on precise location data. A routing engine that works well for passenger transport can also help in dispatching couriers or optimising delivery routes, although Ryde and HERE have framed the current announcement mainly around ride-hailing performance.
A crowded field
Ryde’s most obvious competitor in Singapore is Grab, the region’s largest ride-hailing and delivery platform, which has deep consumer reach and a broad driver network. Gojek, owned by GoTo, also remains a major mobility brand in the city, though its regional footprint has been shaped by strategic pullbacks and market-by-market competition. Local and regional alternatives include TADA, which has promoted a zero-commission approach, as well as ComfortDelGro’s CDG Zig app, backed by Singapore’s largest taxi operator.
Globally, the broader ride-hailing sector is shaped by companies such as Uber, Lyft, Didi and Bolt, though not all operate in Singapore. For Ryde, the challenge is not simply to match those companies feature by feature. It is to carve out a durable position in a market where scale, driver liquidity, trust and app reliability are closely intertwined.
Location data as infrastructure
The partnership also says something about the role of mapping companies in the current phase of mobility. In the early years of ride-hailing, much of the public attention was on consumer adoption, driver recruitment and regulatory battles. Today, more of the competition is happening inside the routing stack.
Maps are no longer static reference tools. They are live systems that feed into pricing, arrival estimates, fleet allocation and delivery promises. This is especially true in Southeast Asian cities, where congestion patterns can be uneven, informal pickup points are common, and road conditions can change quickly.
Singapore is a comparatively orderly market, but it is also demanding. Consumers expect accuracy, regulators scrutinise transport operators closely, and competitors are only a tap away. In that environment, the quality of the underlying location data can shape the user experience as much as the app interface itself.
For Ryde, integrating HERE’s technology is unlikely to transform its market position overnight. But it addresses one of the most important questions in ride-hailing: can the platform make better decisions, faster, before the rider even gets into the car?
If it can, the payoff may be felt not in a flashy new feature, but in something more valuable: fewer missed expectations.
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