Ride-hailing drivers plan to protest deteriorating market

AMMAN — Drivers from ride-hailing applications like Careem and Uber plan to hold a protest denouncing “the deterioration” of the local ride-hailing market.

Omar Rumman, a ride-hailing application driver, on Sunday told The Jordan Times over the phone that “the captains have been facing various challenges for quite some time”.

Drivers are planning to hold a sit-in since the Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Regulatory Commission (LTRC) “did not pay attention to their demands”, he said. 

Most captains are “drowning in debt”, Rumman said, adding that their financial status is not getting any better and there should be a clear strategy for drivers using ride hailing applications.

“The sit-in will either be on the Fourth Circle or in Amman’s Dabouq area,” Ride-hailing Applications Drivers’ Union Spokesperson Lorans Refai said in a statement sent to The Jordan Times.

Refai said that drivers are upset because nothing is changing on the ground and they are only getting promises from the relevant authorities. 

“Last month, there was supposed to be a sit-in on January 25, but it was postponed because we received several promises from the relevant authorities,” he said. 

Drivers are calling the relevant authorities to require ride-hailing companies to take fair deductions from drivers that do not exceed 15 per cent of the trip price. 

Decreasing permit fees from JD400 to JD200, and cancelling fees of JD400 on drivers when changing the car they use, are among the demands drivers are requiring. 

Over 13,000 drivers work with ride-hailing applications in the Kingdom, and almost 4,000 drivers are taken to courts, Refai said.