Policymakers should regulate ride-hailing services by taking into account personal driving licences and semi-liberalisation of related operators, according to the Thammasat Consulting Networking and Coaching Center (CONC).
The Transport Ministry earlier revealed a plan to legalise ride-hailing services by next March through amendments to existing laws. Ride-hailing drivers would also be required to obtain public driving licences to operate such services.
Suthikorn Kingkaew, director of the CONC, part of Thammasat Business School, said drivers for ride-hailing services should be able to use personal driving licences rather than public licences because the latter come with stiffer requirements, such as renewing them every three years, annual auto rechecks and higher tax.
Mr Suthikorn said driving licences should be the same type for cabbies and ride-hailing drivers to ensure fair competition.
The government, he said, should enable taxis to attain flexible charge rates so as to reduce their refusal of passengers. Today the starting price of taxi service is 35 baht, causing some drivers to reject passengers.
Mr Suthikorn said the ride-hailing service segment should not be too liberalised.
"I believe the giant ride-hailing operators today have already caused intense competition," he said. "If we allow too many ride-hailing apps to come, small operators may not be able to survive and it will be difficult to control service quality."
Ride-hailing platforms may need to have their drivers examined in terms of criminal background, while operators must be registered in the country so they can enter the tax system.
The platforms' technology must be stable enough and ready to cope with rising passenger numbers, Mr Suthikorn said.
"Thailand is one of the three Asean countries where ride-hailing service is yet to be legalised," he said.
Mr Suthikorn was speaking on Thursday at a news conference about a CONC study of the impact of ride-hailing services on local tourism and digital economy promotion.
According to the study, which polled 400 consumers in Thailand, 95% of respondents said they needed ride hailing services and 77.2% said they wanted the services urgently legalised.
Last year there were 2.4 million monthly passengers of ride-hailing services, and the number is expected to reach 11 million users by 2025.
Some 105,000 drivers were in the industry last year, and the number is projected to hit 590,000 by 2025.
Boston Consulting Group said ride-hailing will have a positive impact on the economy and society by reducing traffic jams and cutting private car purchases by 60%.
