GPST taxis to adopt Uber application in stages

KUALA LUMPUR: The Gabungan Persatuan dan Syarikat-Syarikat Teksi Semenanjung Malaysia (GPST) will cooperate with Uber Malaysia in a major breakthrough in the local taxi industry which will see the GPST taxis adopting the Uber application in stages from today.

Big Blue Taxi Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail said a memorandum of understanding on the cooperation would be signed today involving 500 taxis under the GPST initially.

“The proposed cooperation has been seen as a positive change to unite the taxi industry with Uber Malaysia.

“The operation of Uber Malaysia has been approved by the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), but the approval will only be announced after being tabled in Parliament,” he told reporters here yesterday.

According to Shamsubahrin, the cooperation would benefit taxi drivers as the previous taxi applications were not very popular among the public.

“Some applications were developed especially for local taxis, but they did not function well and the people were not even aware of the applications,” he said.

In October 2016, about 10,000 taxi drivers returned their vehicles to the permit owners after conventional taxis faced stiff competition from Uber and Grabcar operators.

Shamsubahrin also proposed for the e-hailing system to be closely monitored by SPAD as some applications failed to provide good service to customers and taxi drivers.

“It is disappointing...when we have a system, but there is no booking, no marketing, some companies claimed the system is good, but it is not working,” he said.

In August 2016, SPAD called on all taxi services to use e-hailing application such as Uber and Grab as a new initiative under the Taxi Industry Transformation Programme (TITP). Bernama