Taxi owners in Zarqa protest govt's approval to license ride-hailing apps

Jordan

Published: 2018-02-11 10:59

Last Updated: 2024-03-28 06:42


Taxis lined up outside the Zarqa Municipality in protest of ride-hailing apps. (Roya)
Taxis lined up outside the Zarqa Municipality in protest of ride-hailing apps. (Roya)

Taxi company owners in Zarqa held a peaceful sit in outside the city’s Municipality on Sunday morning to protest the Land Transport Regulatory Commission’s (LTRC) recent decision to officially licence ride-hailing apps in Jordan.

The distressed cab owners said in a letter to the Mayor of Zarqa that this decision “will have a negative impact on the public transportation system in Jordan, and will completely destroy it.”

The letter also noted that the owners have to pay for taxes, licensing fees, as well as extra payments to operate their services. In addition, they complained that they are already “struggling to pay off the bank loans we had taken out to buy our taxis with.”

Since ride-hailing apps began to illegally operate in Jordan, taxi drivers have complained about the losses they have suffered as a result of their competition.

Last month, the LTRC officially began the licensing process of ride-hailing firms in the country, and published a list of the conditions the firms and their drivers would have to comply with to be licensed.

There are around 16,000 taxis across the Kingdom, with 11,500 of them located in Amman.