The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is not opposed to Line Corp’s plan to release a taxi cab-hailing app in Taiwan, but said it must be done legally.
The Japanese company, operator of the popular instant messaging application of the same name, is known to be interested in introducing Line Taxi to this nation.
Line Taxi enables users to find a cab with a GPS-equipped smartphone, and is tied to Line Pay, the company’s mobile payment system.
Department of Railways and Highways Assistant Director-General Lee Chao-hsien (李昭賢) said Line representatives have consulted the ministry about taxi laws and regulations.
“The ministry believes that Line Taxi is beneficial to passenger safety and convenience, and so far we have no objections,” Lee said.
Unlike Uber, which has been slapped with multiple fines by regulators for having registered as a mobile app service provider, but made money from unlicensed taxis, Line Taxi simply facilitates consumers connecting with licensed drivers and does not charge the drivers any fees, Lee said.
That is legal under existing regulations, he said.
However, the Financial Supervisory Commission would have to approve any third-party fees involved in Line Taxi’s payment plan.
Line’s Taiwan public relations department said the taxi-hailing app is an integral part of the company’s strategy to turn Line into a mobile platform for daily commercial transactions.
The company declined to comment on the specifics of rolling out Line Taxi.
There have been widespread reports that Taiwan Taxi is mulling a partnership with Line, but its public relations manager, Huang Wei-huan (黃韋寰), denied the rumors when asked for a comment.
Taiwan Taxi was contacted by Line earlier this year, but it already has its own app, and the overlap in potential users had dissuaded it from agreeing to a deal for the time being, Huang said.
Sources in Taiwan’s taxi sector said it remains to be seen whether cellphone taxi-hailing platforms have a market in Taiwan given that the high density of cabs on the road makes it easy for riders to flag one without waiting, while many operators already have their own app.
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