The Seoul Metropolitan Government and South Korea’s dominant taxi-hailing app Kakao Taxi on Monday announced a new set of policies aimed at discouraging drivers from selectively accepting only customers requesting long-distance rides.

The move comes as part of the municipality’s latest efforts to address complaints that drivers using Kakao Taxi -- who receive alerts from passengers who have requested travel to a specified destination -- deliberately avoid picking up those who request shorter-distance rides.

Seoul City said it will reduce by one-third the number of alerts delivered to a driver through the Kakao Taxi app. By offering drivers a smaller pool of ride requests to choose from in the first place, it hopes to reduce ride discrimination.

Moreover, the Kakao Taxi app will adopt a new algorithm that gives drivers who accept more short-distance rides through the Kakao Taxi app priority access to more longer-distance fares, it said. 

Operated by Korea’s mobile messaging giant Kakao, the Kakao Taxi app is widely used to fetch taxis via smartphone. To request a ride, a customer inputs his or her current location and desired destination.

Despite the convenience, the service has been criticized for giving drivers an easy way to selectively choose which customers they want to pick up and which to ignore.

It has especially become an issue during late-night hours at urban centers such as Gangnam, Hongdae, Itaewon and Yeouido, where people living relatively close by cannot get home because there are no taxis willing to take them.

To better address issues with the Kakao Taxi app, Seoul City said it would launch next month a new taxi-hailing mobile app of its own called “GBRO” that does not require passengers to input a destination when requesting a cab.

Unlike conventional taxi-hailing apps like Kakao Taxi, GBRO will allow passengers to view empty cabs in their area, and make a selection. If a driver refuses the request, it leaves a record that can be used to push for fines or punitive measures on ride refusals, the city said.

However, it is uncertain whether taxi drivers will adopt  Seoul City’s new app when they can simply use other apps that give drivers the freedom to choose the passengers.

The app will become available in a beta version on the Google Play store for Android users from next month, while the app will become available on Apple’s App Store for iOS users from April 2018, the city said.

Among other plans, the municipality plans to make some 2,000 extra taxis available during late-night hours during December and around the Lunar New Year holiday in February to address heightened demand for taxi services during those times.

At places like Gangnam Station and Hongdae Station where taxi refusal incidents are most rampant, the municipality will temporarily increase, for the month of December, the number of nighttime buses carrying passengers across short distances in the area.

The city currently runs 18 nighttime buses in 13 districts across Seoul from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)