Last year, Ryde’s partnership with ComfortDelGro allowed users to book a taxi via the Ryde app.
Today (2 August), they received the Class 1 third-party taxi booking service certificate from the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
According to the LTA website, GrabTaxi is also listed under the Class 1 category.
The LTA states here that the Class 1 is for companies that provide “one or more independent mobile application services, with or without providing integrated mobile application services or other third-party taxi booking services not using mobile application software”.
The Class 2 is “for providing one or more third-party taxi booking services, none of which is an independent mobile application service”.
In the statement, Ryde also claims they are the second largest ride-hailing platform in Singapore.
Ryde A Taxi On A Private-Hire Model
Ryde shared that their taxi rates will now be based on dynamic pricing instead of going by the metered rate.
Any taxi driver interested in driving for this service or RydeX can now register online via the Ryde driver app, which is now available on the Google Play store.
With this, taxi drivers can accept jobs from the app, from RydeX, and street hails.
This means lesser idle time in between jobs and more earning opportunities during off-peak hours for taxi drivers.
On peak periods, namely weekday rush hours, Friday and Saturday nights, and eve of public holidays, taxi drivers can accept RydeX dynamic surged fares.
They can also accept bookings up to three days in advance with Ryde’s scheduled booking feature.
Like RydeX drivers, taxi drivers pay a 10% service fee for each trip completed and are eligible for all RydeX incentives.
Ryde hopes to have 7,000 new taxi drivers join its RydeX service by the end of this year, which would bring the total RydeX driver fleet to over 20,000, including private-hire drivers.
Users can expect faster matches and shorter average wait times of four minutes with the increased number of drivers.
Ridership on Ryde has grown six times since the launch of RydeX in May this year, according to the statement.
Taxi operators are welcome to work with Ryde on a non-exclusive basis.
This move will level the playing field in the industry as taxi drivers will have access to more bookings through Ryde.
Ryde pointed out that most taxi operators were exclusively, contractually bound to other ride-hailing platforms before the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) proposed to remove “exclusivity arrangements with any taxi fleet”.
The company is currently getting approval for taxis to accept its dynamic fixed fares from the Public Transport Council (PTC) and is likely to roll out the RydeX feature to taxi drivers by September.
Terence Zou, Founder and CEO of Ryde Technologies Pte Ltd says, “The taxi industry has undergone unprecedented change over the past 3 years. It has evolved from a traditional metered fare structure to a dynamically priced one.”
“This is more efficient as it better incentivises supply to match demand during peak periods as opposed to meter pricing with discrete peak hour surcharges.”
Featured Image Credit: Screenshot by Vulcan Post, Mr New Bird
