Taxis under the Gabungan Persatuan dan Syarikat-Syarikat Teksi Semenanjung Malaysia (GPST) will be adopting the much-talked about Uber application in stages beginning tomorrow.

Things have moved fast since yesterday’s report from the SunDaily which quoted a director of a leading taxi firm who said that cab companies have little option but to adapt and in fact, utilise the Uber application. Not long ago, the animosity of taxi drivers towards Uber riders even went as far as physical assault.

The latest report by Bernama yesterday have confirmed that a memorandum of understanding will be signed today between GPST and Uber. To start with, this will involve 500 taxis.

"The proposed cooperation has been seen as a positive change to unite the taxi industry with Uber Malaysia.

"The operation of Uber Malaysia has been approved by the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), but the approval will only be announced after being tabled in Parliament," he told reporters here today,” said Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail, CEO of Big Blue Taxi Sdn. Bhd.

He added that the previous application applications developed to rival Uber were not popular with the public. They did not function well and the public were not even aware of it.

In August 2016, SPAD called on all taxi services to use e-hailing application such as Uber and Grab as a new initiative under the Taxi Industry Transformation Programme (TITP).