Source: The National

Ride-hailing giant Uber and its UAE-based partner Careem have halted their cheapest ride options in Dubai, following a decision by the emirate's transport authority.

Dubai's Road and Transport Authority (RTA) has decided to stop the Uber X service and Careem's Go car service from September 1 after both pilot projects came to an end, the companies said in separate statements on Sunday, without providing reasons.

A spokesman from RTA said both “Uber X and Careem Go were introduced as short-term pilot e-hailing services for customers seeking an economy option. All this was done to compare and evaluate existing and new e-hailing services in the city and check on the feasibility of such technology and services in the market."

Last week, Careem formed a partnership with the RTA to make more than half of the authority's taxi fleet available to book through its app by mid-September. Careem will list all 10,000 RTA taxis on the app by early next year.

Careem and the RTA created a joint venture company named Hala to operate the service, under which the former aims to forge other public sector partnerships.

"As a result [of the pilots with Uber and Careem], RTA decided to incorporate the entire fleet of over 10,000 taxis onto the platform," RTA said in a statement to The National. "This includes all the taxi franchise companies in Dubai through Hala, an economical e-hailing service. Other economical ehailing services like Uber X and Careem Go, which operated as pilot, were thus requested to cease operations, with a set deadline over a few months ago."

Continue reading this story