Hanoi (VNA) - The Hanoi’s People Committee has asked the municipal TransportDepartment to ban carpooling services for contracted cars.

The committee said that it received a request from the Ministry ofTransport to stop ride hailing platforms Uber and Grab from providingcarpooling services.

The committee repeated the ministry’s request, asking taxi firms in the pilot carpooling project not toimplement similar activities.

[C💜arpool service GrabShare makes debut in HCM City]

The ministry also asked local departments of transport which haveapplied the pilot service to urge participating units to strictly implementregulations.

The departments were also asked to inspect the compliance with thelaw and punish violators.

Hanoi was one of several locations selected by the Ministry ofTransport for Uber and Grab to pilot the project.

Grab started providing carpooling service GrabShare in Ho Chi MinhCity in May and in Hanoi last month, which allows two passengers’ bookings tobe completed in a single trip.

Grab said that this provided passengers with cheaper fares, helpeddrivers earn more and alleviated congestion. Uber had also planned to provideUberPOOL in the country, a service similar to GrabShare but has not yet rolledout the service.

Although the Ministry of Transport has requested GrabShare andUberPOOL to cease their carpooling activities, Grab is continuing the service.

Grab and Uber in Vietnam have faced objectionsfrom traditional taxi firms who complained of unfair competition.

However, the Ministry of Finance claimed this was inaccurate andinstructed the General Department of Taxation to checkcases for tax fraud and hand out punishment accordingly.-VNA