Against the backdrop of the cab industry’s fierce fight against ride-hailing behemoth Uber, a group representing some of Hong Kong’s biggest taxi associations has announced that its own cab-hailing app will become available later this month.
The Hong Kong Taxi Council (HKTC) announced at a press conference yesterday that their eTaxi app will be available for download on March 15. Founded in 2016, the council is an alliance of 17 of the biggest Hong Kong taxi associations, and counts taxi owners, drivers, and other industry stakeholders among its members.
At yesterday’s press conference, HKTC Chairman Hung Wing-tat said that the new app will allow passengers to pick the model of car, driver, and preferred route to their destination, according to Headline Daily.
Passengers will also be able to rate drivers on the app — an interesting prospect in a city where many have an axe to grind with surly cabbies. Almost half of all complaints logged by the Transport Complaint Unit are cab-related, despite taxis accounting for less than 8 percent of all public transit rides.
The driver version of the eTaxi app is already available to download on Android, and Hung told reporters that nearly 1,000 cabbies have already downloaded it and signed up for the platform.
The platform will join a number of cab-hailing apps already available for download, including HKTaxi, Fly Taxi, God Taxi, and others, most of which have been around for a few years and have thousands of users.
The official announcement of the eTaxi app comes just days after the launch of Uber Flash, a service that gives passengers the option of booking conventional cabs through the Uber app. The launch, however, got off to a decidedly rocky start on Tuesday morning, when the cab company that had agreed to cooperate with Uber, Tin Shing Motors, abruptly pulled out of the partnership at the last-minute after being branded a “traitor” by some taxi groups.
The taxi industry has been fighting tooth and nail against Uber, which is technically illegal under Hong Kong car-hire licensing laws. Despite the government welcoming the company to the city with open arms in 2014, it has since taken a harsher tack, raiding Uber’s offices, prosecuting its drivers, and proposing legislation to double the penalties for those operating unlicensed taxis.
The animosity towards Uber is so such that local media outlets, citing unnamed “sources,” reported yesterday that Tin Shing Motors owner Edward Lau had received threats over his deal with ride-hailing giant.
IT Sector lawmaker Charles Mok yesterday urged the government to look into the purported threats, as well as alleged calls from insurance companies who said they may cancel Lau’s insurance if his company partnered with Uber.
Speaking to RTHK yesterday, Mok said that the reports suggested that either criminal activities or anti-competitive practices were taking place.
“I do believe that the government, in spite of what it thinks about Uber’s other activities – being illegal under current law and so on, they should look into this matter,” he said. “This is very serious.”
