Singapore to review ride sharing apps

Singapore will review the rules for ride sharing apps to “level the playing field” with taxi drivers, the Transport Minister said. Services like UberX and GrabCar allow people to share rides in private cars.

Drivers do not need a vocational licence unlike taxi drivers, Minister Khaw Boon Wan wrote in a blog post. The Ministry of Transport “will study this, and where justified, we shall level the playing field”, he wrote. Senior Minister of State Ng Chee Meng will be in charge of the review, and will work with taxi drivers and citizens.

“A number of taxi drivers have told me that ‘UberX is unfair’,” Minister Khaw wrote. “We must not resist new innovations and new business models. But we must always be fair to players, whether incumbent or insurgents, and strike a balanced approach,” he wrote.