LTFRB orders Uber to stop its bus service set Sept 15

August 25, 2017

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) ordered Uber Systems Inc to stop the launching of Uber bus in Pasig City on September 15.

Aileen Lizada, board member of the LTFRB, said Friday details of the new service supposed to be launched was not presented to them but Uber submitted a letter addressed to LTFRB chairman Martin Delgra III.

“We do not know the details on the Uber bus so we told Uber, stop Uber bus, do not launch”,  Lizada said in a press conference.

In a letter signed by Irish Almeida, public policy associate of Uber System Inc. it said, “ the existing buses of the Pasig City bus project will be viewable on the Uber app…Pasig bus will appear in the Uber app when the Uber app user is within the Pasig City CBD (central business district)”.

“By tapping on the Pasig Bus view, the Uber app user can see where all the Pasig City buses are on the map”, it said.

Uber said there will be “no booking or payments” in using the application since the buses “provide free service only”. A public testing will be conducted two weeks before the launching of the bus project.

“This is not presented to us. So, we are now facing problems again in the denominations of the bus operators”, Lizada said.

“We need to hear details because the bus operators will complain”, she said.

Lizada said they told Uber to present the details of the project in the technical working group meetingon Wednesday.

Uber and Grab were fined P5 million each on July LTFRB for not complying with rules and regulations set by LTFRB on their transport network vehicle services. Uber was later suspended for one month for continuous application and activation of Transport Network Vehicle Services in their platform. Alanna Ambi/DMS