Half of Dubai's taxi fleet will be available via the Careem tracking app

About half of the 10,000-strong Dubai taxi fleet can be booked from Careem's smartphone app since September.

Transport officials said the new venture – called "hala" – would provide an even faster taxi service and eliminate the number of private cars off the roads in order to reduce traffic jams.

People will be able to use credit cars to pay, see itineraries in advance and evaluate drivers.

The authority of the roads and transports of Dubai and Careem – which were bought by its rival Uber for 3.1 billion dollars (11.39 billion dirhams) in March – announced this decision Saturday.

It follows a trial of the service, which began in May, involving 2,000 taxis from Dubai.

"The launch of" hala "aims to […] increase efficiency, facilitate the search for a taxi by booking through the application and reduce the estimated arrival time, "said Matar Al Tayer, general manager of the RTA.

According to the RTA, the estimated time of arrival for Dubai taxis booked through the Careem app has reached approximately 4.5 minutes, a much better performance than recorded between 12 and 14 minutes ago . In September, we hope that response times will be further reduced to about three minutes. The RTA did not specify a time in September for the launch of the service.

When Uber bought Careem this year, many customers have expressed concern that prices will rise. Prices for both services are generally similar but may increase at times. Customers emphasized that they wanted to see more, not less, competition.

Mudbadir Sheikha, Managing Director of Careem, also welcomed this new service.

"It also means less downtime for captains [drivers] who can optimize their time on the road thanks to … real-time alerts of geographic areas in high demand, "he said.