Car-sharing app ekar provides very short rentals. Photo: ekar
Car-sharing app ekar provides very short rentals. Photo: ekar
Car-sharing app ekar provides very short rentals. Photo: ekar
Car-sharing app ekar provides very short rentals. Photo: ekar

Rent a car by the minute? Vehicle-sharing app rules announced in Abu Dhabi


Neil Halligan
  • English
  • Arabic

Car-sharing apps that allow customers to rent a vehicle by the hour or even the minute have been growing in popularity.

Now, Abu Dhabi has outlined regulations for operators of the apps in the emirate.

The Integrated Transport Centre of the Department of Municipalities and Transport in Abu Dhabi announced the rules covering car-sharing apps, which rent vehicles on a short-term basis, for no more than six hours a day.

The use of car-sharing apps, which do away with the need to own a car, has been on the rise in recent years.

Users can rent vehicles via the app by the minute, by the hour, weekly or long-term, 24 hours a day. The app shows users where the closest car is.

The pay-by-use model of car hire saves drivers on costs of insurance, maintenance and car loan repayments. They're also viewed as a viable alternative to ride-hailing services such as Careem or Uber.

In the long term, they help reduce traffic congestion and pollution due to the cars they replace on the roads.

In Abu Dhabi, ekar and Udrive are the current service providers in the emirate.

“This service acts as an encouragement to society, motivating users towards using smart transport methods and contributing to the reduction of private vehicles possession, which in turn, reduces traffic congestion and maintains a clean environment,” the Integrated Transport Centre said.

“It is also an opportunity for visitors, tourists, and businessmen to move from one place to another in the emirate with ease.”

In the regulations outlined by Abu Dhabi's transport authority, new operators must first gain approval from the Department of Economic Development and permission from the centre.

The centre will issue a permit to the service provider and all vehicles used for rental must be licensed by it.

Drivers who rent the cars should have a licence, be registered on the car-sharing app and adhere to traffic laws. The vehicle can be driven only by the registered user.

The Integrated Transport Centre has outlined the clauses, provisions, conditions and the schedule of violations on its website.

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee was born in London in a household of mathematicians and computer scientists. Both his mother, Mary Lee, and father, Conway, were early computer scientists who worked on the Ferranti 1 - the world's first commercially-available, general purpose digital computer. Sir Tim studied Physics at the University of Oxford and held a series of roles developing code and building software before moving to Switzerland to work for Cern, the European Particle Physics laboratory. He developed the worldwide web code as a side project in 1989 as a global information-sharing system. After releasing the first web code in 1991, Cern made it open and free for all to use. Sir Tim now campaigns for initiatives to make sure the web remains open and accessible to all.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.

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Updated: November 22, 2021, 12:45 PM