Moving Out of Poverty Go-jek as Innovative Support for Motorcycle Taxi in Jakarta

Since 2010, the motorcycle-based transportation system in Jakarta has been institutionalised by a start-up company named Go-jek through a mobile phone application. Due to the emergence of Go-jek, the population of motorcycle taxi drivers are divided into two types: online and traditional. Since then, the preference of customers has shifted to the online as it becomes the most popular mode of transportation for the residents of Jakarta. Initially, motorcycle taxi drivers are facing insecurities such as the absence of recognition and no protection related to their work. Hence, this paper seeks to address whether the innovation by Go-jek plays a part in reducing the vulnerability of motorcycle taxi drivers or not. It will be carried out by examining Go-jek drivers’ (in)dependency, their type of entrepreneurship, and assets comparison with traditional ojek drivers along with before-after comparison prior to joining Go-jek. Assets in this context consist of financial productive assets, physical capital, human capital, and social capital. The evidence suggests that Go-jek drivers are dependent self-employed workers. Almost all of Go-jek drivers are classified into growth-oriented entrepreneurs while traditional ojek drivers are survivalist entrepreneurs because of their initially different nature. The inclusiveness that Go-jek claims do not seems to affect the drivers based on their asset vulnerability assessment, except for the increasing social capital.