Competing with Uber and Grab: Traditional taxis sharing ride-hailing apps?

Establishing a common trading platform and a common coordination software for traditional taxi companies is very necessary. When customers search, if one company does not have a car, another company will immediately have a car. This will help customers not worry about a lack of cars and companies not worry about empty cars.

Vietnamese taxi booking apps are at risk of dying prematurely due to high costs. Illustrative photo

In order to compete with Grab and Uber, many Vietnamese taxi companies have recently launched technology-based ride-hailing applications. However, due to inconvenient software and high fares, Vietnamese technology taxis are still... unknown to many people.

It is known that since January 2016, the Ministry of Transport has allowed GrabTaxi Company Limited to pilot the application of technology in managing and connecting passenger transport under contract with cars under 9 seats. To increase competition and give passengers more choices, in April 2017, the Ministry of Transport agreed to allow 9 more units to participate in the project.

However, among the units approved by the Ministry of Transport to deploy technology cars, only 4 applications including Mai Linh Car, Home Car, Thanh Cong Car, and V.Car can be connected.

According to Tien Phong Newspaper's research, these applications have fares equal to traditional taxi fares, much more expensive than cars using foreign technology.

During some peak hours, the applications of some companies cannot be opened. With the application of “Thanh Cong Car”, passengers also receive notifications such as “No cars available”, “No taxi found according to your request”...

A representative of the Hanoi Transport Association said that it is difficult to accept that Vietnamese technology cars have fares equal to traditional taxis and more expensive than foreign technology cars. If they do not change and adapt to new trends, technology cars in particular and Vietnamese taxis in general will find it difficult to survive.

A common dispatch software?

According to Giao thong Newspaper, Mr. Bui Danh Lien, Permanent Vice President of Hanoi Transport Association, assessed that taxi companies are running their own business. This makes the ability to compete with Grab and Uber in attracting customers through electronic booking applications impossible.

In reality, even though two taxi companies are “next to each other,” they do not have any relationship with each other. Each company has its own way of developing the market and each company takes care of its own business. In addition, the communication and promotion work of traditional taxi companies is not good, making it difficult to change customers’ habits of calling the hotline.

Mr. Lien proposed the idea of ​​taxi companies establishing a joint coordination software. When customers search, if one company does not have a car, another company will immediately have a car. This will help customers not worry about a lack of cars and companies not worry about running empty cars. If the empty seats decrease by 30%, the taxi fare will decrease.

According to baochinhphu.vn