KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — Thousands of taxi drivers will protest on November 18 against Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar over his failure to protect the taxi industry from competition.
Malaysian Taxi Drivers Transformation Association (Pers1m) deputy chairman Kamarudin Mohd Husain claimed that they are unhappy with how SPAD has allowed ridesharing apps such as Uber and GrabCar to encroach on the industry’s interests.
“We don’t want to go against the government. What we will do on November 18 is get the government’s attention,” he was quoted as saying by the news portal The Star Online.
“We don’t want SPAD to be dissolved, but the trust given to Syed Hamid Albar has been wasted,” he added.
Kamarudin said they expect over 6,000 taxi drivers to take part in the protest, which they plan to launch at 10am on the appointed date from three locations — Padang Merbok, the KL Mosque and the Craft Complex near Jalan Conlay.
Taxi drivers here had claimed that ridesharing apps had been stealing their customers, although there is no evidence to support their claims.
In other markets where ridesharing apps such as Uber and Lyft were forced to share detailed data on their operations with the local government, a study by Portland, Oregon in the United States, found that although taxi rides fell a little, demand for ride-hailing services more than doubled those numbers in just four months of entering the market.
It is unclear if the local authorities here have requested data from Uber for a similar study.
Of late, there has been reported violence by taxi drivers against Uber drivers in Kuala Lumpur, which resulted in the arrest of at least one Uber driver for ferrying passengers without a licence.
There was also a viral video of taxi drivers in KLCC filming themselves harassing an Uber driver, before ending the video with a warning that something similar would happen to other Uber drivers.
