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Recently, Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) clarified that carpooling matched through informal non-business mediums, such as Telegram’s SGHitch, is illegal.

In fact, those who provide illegal carpooling services or facilitate such services can face a hefty fine and jail time.

This presents a bit of a problem to the hundreds of thousands of people in Singapore who are in group chats created to connect passengers who need a ride and drivers who can give them a lift.

Carpooling in Singapore

Despite its legal status and the notorious stories of harassment associated with group chats that are used to facilitate carpooling, the practice — in principle — has its benefits, especially to reduce traffic on the roads.

In the early 1970s, traffic congestion was rapidly becoming a problem in Singapore, particularly in the Central Business District (CBD).

So in June 1975, the Area Licensing Scheme (ALS) launched where motorists had to obtain a special supplementary licence if they wanted to enter the CBD’s restricted zone (RZ).

Under the ALS, toll charges, which cost S$3 per day or S$60 per month, were imposed on vehicles entering the zone between 7:30 am and 9:30 am daily, excluding Sundays and public holidays.

All vehicles were required to purchase and display the special licence to enter the RZ.

Here’s the catch, if you were carpooling with four or more persons, the particular motor vehicle would be exempted from the ALS charges.

This gave rise to a peculiar phenomenon: Children would wait by the road just outside the RZ and offer to be passengers.

But in 1989, the carpooling exemption was phased out, and it was no longer possible for drivers to pick up random kids to evade charges.

The ALS itself was eventually replaced in 1998 by the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system.

Today, while drivers can’t avoid ERP charges the same way, carpooling is still a great way to cut costs and reduce traffic on the roads.

Whether you’re hitching a ride from your friends’ parents en route to school or catching a ride to the workplace with your co-workers, ERP charges and petrol costs can be spilt amongst passengers.

This sort of social car-pooling is not restricted, said LTA.

In addition, arrangements facilitated through licensed business platforms (such as GrabHitch, RydePool and other license-exempt business platforms) are currently permitted.

What are licensed platforms required to do?

LTA announced that from October 2020, Point-to-Point (P2P) service operators, with 800 or more vehicles on their platforms providing ride-hailing or car-pooling services, had to apply for and be awarded licences to operate.

Comfort, Grab, Gojek, Tada, and Ryde have the Ride-hail Service Operator Licence (RSOL), which essentially means their drivers can pick up on-call passengers.

Of these, only Ryde and Grab were issued the Carpool Service Operator Licence (CSOL).

The CSOL’s “Codes of Practice” states that licensees must ensure that bookable drivers dispatched on their platform have:

1. A valid driving licence
2. Liability coverage under a valid insurance policy

Platforms are also required to report and investigate both safety incidents and non-safety incidents such as allegations of criminal offences or behaviour during rides.

And if there are disputes, “licensees are required to document the complaints, the outcome of investigations, and the final resolution for each dispute,” CSOL dictates.

The license regulates their service, especially where safety is a concern.

The companies themselves also have their standard practices when hiring drivers.

Responding to Mothership’s enquiries, a Grab spokesperson said that all of the company’s drivers, including Hitch drivers, undergo a “rigorous screening process where they are required to verify their identity before they can go online to accept jobs”.

This includes furnishing NRIC details and using selfie authentication on the Grab Driver app.

Grab also requires them to produce a valid driving licence, and vehicle log cards to ensure they have valid motor insurance.

“This helps prevent incidences of account sharing and allows us to quickly identify each driver-partner where necessary,” they added.

Importantly, all GrabHitch passengers are “automatically covered by Personal Accident Insurance for the entire duration of their ride”.

Meanwhile, for Ryde, the company’s spokesperson said that its system enables riders to rate and review their drivers, and vice versa to identify any users who may not be meeting the company’s community standards and guidelines for safety and service quality.

In the event of an accident, Ryde's website says the carpool driver’s vehicle insurance remains valid as “carpooling is not for profit” and it will work similarly to giving friends or family a lift and then splitting trip costs.

Carpooling matched on Telegram not allowed

To date, has LTA said that carpooling services matched through informal non-business mediums, such as Telegram’s SGHitch, is not allowed.

Those guilty of providing a car-pooling matching service will face a fine not exceeding S$10,000, imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.

Despite this SGHitch still has over 198,000 members at the time of writing.

Other chats such as Telegram SG Hitch Singapore and SG Hitch Female Drivers Riders had about over 21,000 and 32,000 members respectively.

On one of these groups, the admins have noted the recent reports on LTA's stance, and urged group members to "MAKE FRIEND FIRST" before accepting any hitch arrangements.

Admins are also taking action against those who mention or discuss setting a price for rides, saying it is illegal to earn income through this means.

In any case, these group chats still receive thousands of messages each day.

Yet the popularity of such chats belie the problems that arise out of their use; numerous cases of harassment have been reported to occur during such unregulated rides.

This might be exacerbated by the fact that drivers and riders aren't vetted by the Telegram chats.

In addition to that, these drivers aren’t required to get a Private Hire Car Driver’s Vocational Licence (PDVL), which allows one to drive a taxi, private hire car or bus, or work as a bus attendant on a school bus in Singapore.

Can I provide carpooling without a platform?

An individual who provides an illegal car-pooling service without a vocational licence (PDVL) or using an unlicensed vehicle will face a fine of up to S$3,000, imprisonment for a term of up to six months or both.

To apply for PDVL, one needs to be at least 30 years old and a Singaporean.

CSOL, which allows platforms to provide carpool services, does not require a PDVL, unlike their other drivers.

For example, those interested in being a Grab driver need to have a PDVL but GrabHitch drivers do not need it unless they are driving a private hire vehicle.

Top images are taken from Unsplash & Grab Singapore.