Taxi aggregator Uber on Thursday announced that it believed that UberPOOL, its ride sharing service, was legal and said that it would continue with the services on Friday, when the three-day time period given by the Transport Department to halt share rides runs out.
The company also started an online petition to gather signatures from supporters of UberPOOL stating that these signatures would be presented, as a show of support for the service, to the Transport Department. In a statement issued on Thursday, Uber said that it would continue to engage with the Transport Department and address concerns expressed by the latter.
Justifying the continuation of UberPOOL, a spokesperson said, “UberPOOL is a product that enables Driver Partners to pick up and drop identified riders through the Uber App under a single contract. When a rider chooses UberPOOL through the Uber App, he/she consents to another person sharing the trip. There is a clear understanding between all the riders on the trip and the Driver Partner that the trip and the vehicle will be shared. The App also identifies all the riders and the Driver Partner. The law permits a contract carriage permit holder to stop to pick up or set down passengers who are included in the contractual understanding with the driver. UberPool fulfills this requirement and we believe that it does not violate the contract carriage permit.”
However, this argument might not go down well with the Transport Department which had pointed out on Tuesday that contract carriage permits only allowed for pick up of passengers from a fixed point and drop to another fixed point. “If they choose to operate on Friday, we will take action against them,” said Transport Commissioner M.K. Aiyappa.
On Tuesday, Mr. Aiyappa had spoken out in favour of rideshare methods and said that it needed to be brought under a legal framework. “They will stop their services and approach the Department with a request to permit ridesharing. This can be done by modification of their permit conditions which I will recommend to the State Government,” he said.
But with the stance taken by Uber on Thursday, a crackdown on ridesharing services is imminent on Friday. Rival Ola also operates a rideshare service but did not clarify if these will ply on Friday.
