Careem joins hands with Hala taxi to take bookings and expand its services to the region

• Economy taxi services Careem Go and Uber X have been halted by the RTA

• Careem forms joint venture with RTA to launch Hala, an e-hailing service that will take bookings of over half of RTA taxis.

• Careem will expand Hala services to other markets in the region where they are currently present.

As the joint venture of Careem and RTA was announced to launch Hala e-hailing service, we received a notification that Careem Go and Uber X, the economy service from the two ride-hailing apps were halted by the RTA.

Starting mid-September, people in Dubai will be able to book RTA taxis from Careem's mobile app. Nearly 5,500 taxis will be available to book via the app, which will not have multiplier price surge. Instead, it will charge AED 8 as starting fare during regular hours, and AED 12 during peak hours. However, the taxis will charge the same amount per kilometre as regular RTA taxis.

In addition, people booking Hala taxi through the Careem app will be able to enjoy all the benefits of Careem’s loyalty programme.

This new Hala ride booking service will be implemented across all seven RTA franchisees, covering more than 50 percent of the current 10,000 taxis on the road. Hala plan is to extend this service to incorporate all Dubai taxis by early 2020.

Careem and RTA have been testing out the booking services since May this year. During the pilot phase, they were able to cut down time between booking and taxi arrival from 10 minutes to 3.5 minutes.

The venture into e-booking also means that the current call centres would be eventually phased out, as confirmed by Ahmed Bahrozyan, Chief Executive Officer of RTA, and Ibrahim Sultan Al Haddad, Director of the commercial and investment department of the RTA.

Last week, Clemence Dutertre, CEO of Hala, also announced to the press that service will be expanded to new markets and regions in which Careem currently operates. She joins as Hala’s CEO after serving as the VP of Careem and RTA joint venture that began in March this year.

Bassel Al Nahlaoui, Managing Director of Careem Gulf and Pakistan, revealed that Careem also has plans to introduce a similar service across all Emirates as well as the region.

As the Hala service is due to launch mid-september, the pilot phase of Careem Go and Uber X have been halted, thereby the cheapest ride hailing option now is that of Hala taxi via the Careem app.

It has been reported that both Uber X and Careem Go were introduced as short-term pilot programmes to test out the online ride hailing market and understand the feasibility of new players, technology and services in the sector.