Car Hailing App “GO” Charges Additional Fees for Service
Before you know it, all sorts of “fees” are being charged
The cab dispatch application “GO” seemed like a convenient system when it first appeared on the market, but before you know it, various “fees” are being charged.
A quick look reveals that the “pick-up fee” was changed for each cab operator in accordance with the November 14, 2022 fare revision for general passenger automobile transportation business, and an “app arrangement fee” was added at the same time, which is why it has not been talked about much.
The original “fare + pick-up fee of 420 yen” was changed to “fare + pick-up fee of 300 yen + application arrangement fee of 100 yen (varies by cab company and area),” which may have given users the impression that they were getting a better deal.
However, there is a “priority pass arrangement fee” (300-980 yen, not fixed) that is applied when there are no available cabs in the vicinity due to congestion or other reasons. A fee for specifying the crew and type of vehicle, a fee for specifying the conditions of vehicles equipped with air purifiers, and so on.
A certain IT firm explained that, “Basically, app development is done for free or at a loss at first, and once a certain amount of market share is gained, the development process shifts to a fee-based or charge-based approach.”
The commissions were not being passed on to the cab drivers
What is surprising, however, is that these commissions are not returned to the drivers.
One private cab operator in Tokyo confides the following complaint.
“When you actually take the priority dispatch (priority pass fee), it is common for the driver to be forced to drive 5 to 6 kilometers to get to a very remote location. And the GO app company takes all the money.”
Mr. Shoji Tokunaga, Deputy Central Executive Committee Chairman of the National Federation of Automobile Transport Workers’ Unions, also commented on the treatment of cab drivers.
“These commissions are the profits of the app companies and are not reflected in the sales of the cab companies or their drivers. I think this is a big problem.”
