Uber's expansion plans in Seoul got a little more complicated on Thursday as the Seoul city government announced it will launch its own premium taxi service in August.
The decision to create its own service comes a week after the country's transport ministry spurned Uber's proposal for a new driver registration. Government officials also reiterated its pledge to ban Uber, the popular app that connects passengers to private cars on their smartphone devices, according to Reuters.
Once it's ready, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will introduce the taxi-hailing service with 100 luxury and mid-sized sedans each.
"We will provide a premium tax service which excels that of Uber," Seoul city said during its presentation material, according to Reuters.
The taxi association will partner with Seoul city for the pilot service, though additional details have not been released to the press yet.
Seoul city will also promote services that connect interested users with registered taxis through smartphone apps. Services will be launched by local companies next month like KakaoTalk and SK Telecom.
Back in January, Seoul started offering locals rewards of up to 1 million won ($929) to those who reported any private or rented car drivers providing transportation through the Uber app.
A month earlier, South Korean prosecutors indicted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Uber's South Korean unit for breaking transportation rules that require vehicles and drivers used in taxi services to be officially licensed.
Uber is fighting bans in South Korea, France, Spain and India over violations that include using unlicensed drivers.
Earlier this week, Uber announced that it was adding new features to its taxi hailing app in India after being banned in New Delhi last year over rape allegations against one of its drivers.
Uber's India app now has an "SOS" button to call local police directly to the vehicle a passenger is in and a "Send Status" feature to allow passengers to share ride information with their contacts in real time, according to Reuters.
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