New ride-hailing regulations allow more control over permits — committee

AMMAN — The Land Transport Regulatory Commission recently amended the law regarding ride-hailing applications, limiting the total cars working for licensed apps to 13,000, and capping each app’s number of drivers to 6,000

Member of the ride-hailing application drivers' dialogue committee Samir Akaileh told The Jordan Times that the new regulations will also allow a driver who works with Careem, for example, to work with other licensed companies, whereas before drivers had no control over their permits and were limited to working with one company. 

Previously, drivers laid off from a company were unable to obtain a new permit and thus had no stability, but since the new regulations allow drivers to work with multiple ride-hailing apps, the set number is not actually limiting, Akaileh said on Sunday.

"The truth is, each app previously had a maximum of 5,000 drivers, but one company did not fancy the decision and allowed 1,200 additional drivers to register with them," Akaileh said.

He added: "Since the limit was 5,000, the company did not allow drivers who finished all their paperwork to start immediately, leaving them to protest until the government increased the limit and allowed them to start working normally." 

The Jordan Times contacted officials at the Land and Transport Regulatory Committee, but did not receive a response. 

Currently, Akaileh said there are five official registered ride-hailing apps in the Kingdom; Uber, Careem, Genie, Al Ameen and Petra, and a driver can now use their permit to work with all of them at once.

"Therefore, it is in the government's benefit to register as many companies as they can, since money collected from the taxes and other fees those companies have to pay will go into the treasury," he said. 

"There has also been an issue recently where some apps are always operating on 'peak time', increasing fares significantly, and this is bothering people who use the apps regularly. Registering more companies and allowing drivers to work with them will mitigate this issue and bring fares back to the way they were before," Akaileh added.