Meeting on illegal taxi services planned Monday

DLT director-general Sanit Promwong said Tuesday the department and the joint committee responsible for reorganising public transport vehicles will hold a meeting on Monday to brainstorm ideas on how to allow only legal taxis on the streets and to prevent illegal ones from causing problems. 
The meeting came after legal dispute over Uber, ridesharing application service, in recent weeks. Authorities have lately conducted many sting operations to arrest Uber drivers in Chaing Mai. 
Uber issued a statement last week, calling on public to sign a petition to support its service. It insisted it is not a taxi service, but ridesharing service instead. So, it cannot register as public transportation. 
Sanit, however, insisted Uber service is against the law due to the use of personal vehicles for public hire service. 
He said the DLT is currently in the process of developing a central mobile application for taxi services. The new app, which is expected to be linked to over 100,000 taxis, is aimed to upgrade the quality of taxi services in the country by ensuring more convenience and safety for passengers.