KUALA LUMPUR: The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) has imposed five new regulations for e-hailing operators, to ensure better safety for its passengers.
In a statement today, SPAD said following a meeting with Grab Malaysia’s senior officials, it has decided to tighten the grip on e-hailing drivers.
This is following the alleged rape incident involving a female passenger in Seri Kembangan recently.
"There were a total of five regulations which must be complied, effective June 16," it said.
Among which is for e-hailing operators to submit records of their drivers to SPAD to enable the Commission to conduct a background checks in synergy with other enforcement agencies, including with the police and Road Transport Department.
SPAD also has instructed the operators to expedite the implementation of the panic or (SOS) button on their app as soon as possible.
The proposed 'panic button', will provide passengers with a feature that alerts police in the event of an emergency.
As a proactive risk mitigation policy, it also urged e-hailing operators to adopt a more comprehensive profiling process of drivers as a screening mechanism to weed out high risk individuals.
"Here after, starting from June 16, e-hailing operators are also required to submit a monthly update of drivers who were blocked by the operators for traffic, services and behavioural related offences to enable the Commission to blacklist them from migrating to other e-hailing operators.
"Together with this update, they are also required to furnish SPAD with monthly driver's rating data to facilitate proactive issue management functions," it said.
It said that once full regulation of e-hailing is passed in Parliament, SPAD expects e-hailing operators to practice the highest standards of safety and quality service.
The commission said it will not hesitate to penalise e-hailing operators or drivers, and impound vehicles of e-hailing drivers who violate the law.