Oman taxi service suspended

A taxi service via mobile app in Muscat has been suspended by the transport ministry.

Otaxi, which was developed by a group of young Omanis in 2014, had 100 drivers working daily via their app, according to a company spokesman.

The Ministry of Transport and Communication ordered them to suspend operations until they acquire the proper authorisation, a spokesman for Otaxi said.

"The Ministry Of Transport and Communication has requested an immediate suspension of our app Otaxi," said Otaxi in a tweet.

The app was developed by young Omanis in 2014, to ease the process of getting a taxi in Muscat.

An official from the company said," Our app was suspended because of lack of the required authorisation in road transport."

"We will surely comply with the orders of the ministry, and we have done so already, as we immediately suspended our application," he added.

The app has a number of features such as GPS to locate the user, a mechanism to show how far the driver is, and it sends notifications when the driver arrives.

Additionally, the app allowed users to save their favourite spots so that they could easily select it when selecting a drop off location.

After drop off, the user received an electronic receipt which displayed the pick-up time, drop off time, the name of the driver, distance, duration and total cost.

The app mainly focused in the Muscat area, where they had approximately 100 daily active drivers, who were available 24-hours through the application.

"We thank all for the opportunity to serve them, we hope it was done well," the official said.

The team hopes to look into the appropriate process of receiving the required authorisation.