Traditional taxis and ride-hailing vehicles need not have light boxes installed as the Ministry of Transport has changed its stance, amending a government decree on transport business.

App-based ride-hailing vehicles may be managed by technology, instead of having to install a light box on top as proposed by the Ministry of Transport (MoT) earlier.

Bonus payments for ride-hailing drivers seem a lot less forthcoming now that the firms have gained a firmer foothold in Vietnam. Comparing Grab, Go-Viet, and newcomer Be, the Singaporean giant seems the most tight-fisted.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked the Ministry of Transport to scrap unnecessary business conditions for transport firms, including a proposal for making roof light boxes mandatory for ride-hailing vehicles with fewer than nine seats.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Transport proposes temporarily putting ride-hailing firms such as Grab or Fastgo in the same category as traditional taxis until the revision of the Law on Road Traffic is completed.

Cars which provide passenger transportation services via ride-hailing platforms like Grab will have to have roof signs showing that they were “contract vehicles”.