Daegu’s taxi app (Daeguro Taxi) officially launches on December 22, 2022 (Thursday)

Daegu Metropolitan City announced the official launch of Daeguro Taxi with various services and benefits, such as reduced commission fees, no service fee for users, and safe return home service, challenging the giant platforms that are monopolizing the local taxi industry.

Daeguro Taxi

Daeguro Taxi officially begins service on December 22, 2022, and the launch was led by the local taxi union to provide support for the taxi industry, which is suffering from excessive fees imposed by taxi-hailing platforms monopolized by large companies, reduce the cost of using taxis for the people, and strengthen the safety of taxi users.

For Daeguro Taxi, there is no service fee to hail a cab for the users, and it is also possible to use the delivery platform Daeguro’s mileage to pay for the rides. Going forward, the service developers are planning to give additional discounts to the users who pay with the city’s local currency called Daegu Happiness Pay. With the launch of Daeguro Taxi, KRW 3,000 discount coupons for first rides will be provided to 3,000 users every day on first-come, first-served basis. Moreover, by the end of the year, KRW 2,000 discount coupons will be provided to users on the day after they use the Daeguro Taxi service, reducing taxi costs for the people of Daegu.

In addition, to secure more accessibility and convenience of use for the people, the developers have made it possible to use Daeguro taxi for the over 300,000 Daeguro users without having sign up or download a special app.

There are also special features for Daeguro Taxi. The Safe Return Home service aims to help people return home safely by allowing users to text the information about the taxis they are riding to maximum three people, such as their parents and friends; the Third-Party Taxi Support service allows third parties to call and pay for the rides taken by children or seniors. Moreover, the platform allows users to search abbreviated words for locations that young people use, such as “Daebaek,” short for Daegu Baekhwajeom (Daegu Department Store) and “Jungpa,” short for Jungang Pachulso (Central Police Station).

The local taxi industry also seems to be welcoming the official launch of Daeguro Taxi. As Daeguro Taxi will not charge commission fees for the first six months since the launch and impose a maximum commission fee of KRW 30,000 a month, which is much lower than the fees charged by the monopolizing giant cab-hailing platforms. This is expected to help solve the local taxi industry’s financial difficulties and also contribute to vitalizing the local economy by preventing the outflow of local capital.

Since the number of participating cabs is the key to the success of taxi-hailing platforms, Daeguro Taxi has secured over 2,300 company-owned and independent taxis so far, well on track to reach its goal of securing over 4,000 taxis and settling down stably to achieve 30 percent market share.

“The launch of Daeguro Taxi will ease the burden of fees for the taxi industry and transportation workers and also provide practical benefits to Daegu citizens who enjoy the convenience of using taxis,” remarked Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo. He added, “I would like to ask for everyone’s support and interest in Daeguro Taxi so that it can benefit the taxi industry, transportation workers, and the people by changing the current monopolistic structure of the taxi-hailing platforms into a competitive structure.”