Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is to impose new charges on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Careem with effect in some instances from January 23.
As of Monday, Careem users will be hit with a surcharge of AED3 ($0.82) per trip, which will be passed directly to the RTA, Careem said in a statement on its website.
However, Uber told Arabian Business it was working with the RTA on a joint study to devise a more “economic” pricing model to adopt.
It said it had accepted the RTA’s plans to impose a fee on ride-hailing services on the condition that it would be able to work out how much to charge.
For the time being, no AED3 or other surcharge will be passed to Uber passengers.
The RTA has been contacted for further comment but had yet to respond at the time of publication. It is understood that the surcharge is part of a raft of planned new regulations for transport services with app-based ride-hailing platforms.
Careem said in its statement: “Effective 23 January 2017 at 00:00 Dubai time each trip you take with us originating in Dubai will carry a surcharge of AED3. Careem will pass all of the surcharges onto the RTA.
“For Careem to continue to serve you here in Dubai, it’s important for us to comply with RTA regulations. By taking this step, you can be sure our service will remain uninterrupted and continue to improve.”
Careem added that the fee is applicable on both on-demand and pre-scheduled journeys but only on completed trips, not cancellations. The surcharge is a flat fee, Careem added, which will be included on all passenger receipts labelled as ‘RTA fee’.
The fee will not apply to RTA taxis booked through the Careem app – a service that is scheduled to launch shortly following a deal between the two parties earlier this month.
A spokesperson for Uber said: “We recently signed an agreement with the RTA and part of this partnership is a three month study, exclusive to Uber, that will look at launching an economy solution.
“Fees are a necessary part of the new regulations, and the exact pricing will be determined during the study – our goal is to make the Uber product accessible to everyone from a both a rider and driver standpoint.”
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