Kakao Taxi's 'Sonnim Gollataewugi'... Seoul City to Conduct On-Site Investigation of Operation Status

Intensive Crackdown on Illegal Taxi-Booking App Misuse for Selective Picking in 8 Areas Including Hongdae and Gangnam Until Year-End
Public-Private-Academic TF Team Launched to Develop Platform Taxi Improvement Measures for Monopoly Prevention and Competitiveness Enhancement

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is pushing forward measures to resolve the inconvenience experienced by citizens due to platform taxis.

On the 13th, Seoul announced that it will conduct its first on-site survey to identify the inconveniences faced by citizens caused by ‘Kakao Taxi,’ which monopolizes the platform market, through passenger destination display and preferred area priority dispatch services. Seoul plans to intensively crack down on illegal acts of selective passenger acceptance abusing the call app, which accounts for most of the complaints about ride refusals, until the end of the year. Additionally, a public-private-academic task force (TF) will be launched to develop improvement plans for platform taxis, including monopoly prevention and securing competitiveness.

A Seoul city official stated, “We have continuously requested amendments to laws from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and persistently asked and discussed improvements with Kakao Taxi to resolve issues such as selective passenger acceptance by platform taxis. Nevertheless, citizen inconveniences caused by the monopolistic structure of platform companies and unfair issues in the taxi industry continue, so we plan to lead improvements in the industry with stronger measures.”

The main points of this plan include ▲on-site survey of Kakao Taxi usage inconveniences ▲intensive crackdown on illegal acts of selective passenger acceptance by abusing call apps such as false reservation signals ▲launching a public-private-academic TF team to develop platform taxi improvement measures.

Seoul will first conduct an operational status survey of Kakao Taxi’s call service for the first time to investigate and analyze the impact of Kakao Taxi’s destination display and preferred area priority dispatch service (paid) on taxi call success and the resulting citizen inconvenience.

The survey will be conducted by checking whether passengers choose long or short distances based on destination display, the dispatch success rate and time taken depending on whether drivers subscribe to the preferred area priority dispatch service. Additionally, the assigned vehicle numbers for successful calls will be checked to investigate recent suspicions of Kakao’s affiliated taxis receiving preferential calls. Seoul will start a research project for the survey within this month and conduct it until the end of November. The survey and analysis results will be delivered to Kakao to urge voluntary improvements and shared with related agencies such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Fair Trade Commission to lead institutional improvements.

Furthermore, from the 15th until the end of the year, intensive crackdowns on illegal acts of selectively picking up only long-distance passengers by abusing taxi apps such as Kakao Taxi will be conducted every Friday night at eight locations where ride refusals frequently occur: Gangnam, Hongdae, Itaewon, Yeongdeungpo, Jongno, Dongdaemun, Express Bus Terminal, and Konkuk University Station.

The main targets of the crackdown are taxis that falsely display reservation signals or turn off the vacant light and pretend to be resting while waiting to selectively pick up long-distance passengers through Kakao apps, etc. Since the authority to impose ride refusal penalties was transferred from autonomous districts to the city, complaints about ride refusals have significantly decreased, but most complaints now involve app-based ride refusals and false reservation signals.

Next, to enable the taxi industry to secure competitiveness and develop improvement measures for platform taxis on its own, a ‘public-private-academic TF’ composed of Seoul city officials, taxi industry representatives, and platform experts will be launched within this month. The TF will discuss ▲plans for the taxi industry to establish its own platform and necessary city support ▲sustainable management plans for platform taxis ▲support measures for taxi operators and drivers related to platform taxis ▲institutional improvement plans for platform taxi enhancements. Seoul plans to produce substantial discussion results through thorough prior review and feedback processes and prepare a reasonable comprehensive improvement plan for platform taxis.

Meanwhile, to prevent selective passenger acceptance through apps, Seoul has made ‘non-display of destination’ a licensing condition for taxi transport franchise businesses authorized by the city and has proposed institutional improvements to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to codify ‘non-display of destination’ in the Passenger Transport Act.

Baek Ho, Director of Urban Transportation, said, “Although taxi innovation is a timely task, the monopolistic structure of platform companies continues to cause unfair problems and citizen inconveniences such as selectively picking up only long-distance passengers. Seoul recognizes this as a very serious issue and will make every effort to establish reasonable win-win measures and resolve citizen inconveniences.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.