The Land Transport Department will meet operators of three mobile-based taxi applications next week to discuss relevant regulations following last week’s declaration that industry leader Uber is illegal.
Department director-general Teerapong Rodprasert said Tuesday that the department has called a meeting with executives from Uber Technologies Corp, of the US, Malaysia's GrabTaxi, and Brazil's Easy Taxi on Dec 9 to convince the firms comply with existing regulations.
Traditional taxis are being challenged by new services like Uber and the Land Transport Department is trying to sort out this problem. (Photo by Pattarachai Prechapanich)
The department said on Friday that the Uber service was illegally operating as it violated the Motor Vehicle Act because drivers do not hold commercial driving licences and their cars are not registered for commercial use. It warned passengers not to use Uber due to concerns over the safety of passengers and transactions made by credit cards.
The department said hailing a taxi through a smartphone application or website is illegal because the law recognises only call centres registered with the government. Drivers accepting bookings via software applications can be fined up to 2,000 baht and could see their licences revoked.
All conventional taxi operators are required to install radios to contact their call centre to pick up passengers.
''The department will explain to them that their service is illegal and want to listen to the operators to find a solution to the problem,'' Mr Teerapong said while warning of legal action if they refuse to attend the talks.
The centre of the attention is on Uber, which was named by the department on Friday as an illegal operator.
Witoon Naewpanich, a leader of the network of taxi cooperatives in Bangkok, opposed the planned meeting and any attempt to legalise the Uber service. Uber taxis are taking away passengers from ordinary cabs and drivers are suffering from the competition, he told INN.
Bangkok has 110,000 traditional taxis registered with the department. Mr Teerapong said the department has no information how many vehicles have joined Uber and other firms.
Uber's drivers operate in direct competition with conventional taxis. GrabTaxi and Easy Taxi, by comparison, employ conventional taxi drivers, letting them use the smartphone applications as a supplemental method of finding customers.
Uber launched in Bangkok in April and in Phuket in October, adding the cities to 35 cities in Asia and more than 250 cities where it operates worldwide.
Tawatchai Laosirihongthong, director of the Traffic and Transport Development and Research Centre, said the presence of Uber in Thailand filled a gap for people wanting transport services in the city as it attracted customers dissatisfied with the service provided by conventional cabbies in Bangkok.
"We have to admit the problems of normal taxis. They fail to respond to customers' needs," he said in an interview with the Chulalongkorn University Broadcasting station.
Uber customers are willing to pay more for the new service which ''addresses their problems," said the academic from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi.
Judging by complaint levels, service has not improved.
Some 34,000 passengers complained to the department about taxis in the fiscal year to September. The top complaint was drivers' refusals to stop or take them where they wanted to go, followed by rude behaviour, and reckless driving, according to the department.
Mr Tawatchai urged the department to solve the conflict between traditional and new taxi services by thinking of benefits for users instead of sticking only to the law.
''What's next if Uber is halted and traditional taxi service don't improve or even get worse,'' he asked.