3-Year Wait Before Firms Can Sell Private-Hire Cars to Individuals

Move meant to stabilise supply of vehicles used to provide ride-hailing services: LTA

- Lee Nian Tjoe

From Feb 19, companies will have to keep their private-hire cars (PHCs) meant for ride-hailing services for three years before they can convert these vehicles out of the scheme to be passenger cars, or transfer them to individuals.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said the move is meant to stabilise the supply of vehicles used to provide ride-hailing services.

Between January 2022 and August 2024, some 1,500 chauffeured PHCs were converted out of the scheme each year within their first three years, LTA told The Straits Times.

The agency said on Feb 19 that the imposition of the three-year lock-in period will ensure companies that acquire such vehicles will predominantly lease them to drivers providing ride-hailing services.

It will also prevent businesses from removing the cars from the private-hire market prematurely and selling them instead, which would affect the supply of cars providing point-to-point transport services on the market.

Before this, there were no restrictions on such conversions. Companies could convert their PHCs to passenger cars and sell them as used cars freely.

Taxis, in contrast, cannot be sold as or converted to private cars.

LTA said it wanted to announce the new requirement after the certificate of entitlement (COE) bidding exercise on Feb 19, but its information technology vendor NCS made an unintended move of releasing the information, which "should not have happened".