On Tuesday, the National Traffic Safety Committee and GrabTaxi Viet Nam, which is a mobile app taxi booking company, signed an agreement to trial a programme which offers drinkers safe rides home in Da Nang from 2015 to 2018.

Under the agreement, from now until July 2016 the programme will be implemented at 10 local restaurants offering alcoholic beverages. 

The company will also provide blood alcohol concentration calculators free to local relevant agencies in order to help them improve their monitoring of drunken motorbike and car drivers.  In addition, the company will assist these agencies in publicising safe and responsible driving amongst the general public.

The signing ceremony in progress

The participating restaurants will sign commitments to encourage their customers not to drive their vehicles after drinking alcoholic beverages.  The free GrabTaxi app will be used to call taxis for drunken customers.  In addition, a free-of-charge overnight parking service will be offered to customers and the safety of their vehicles will be ensured. 

GrabTaxi Viet Nam and the city’s Tien Sa taxi company have trialled a useful taxi booking app for one month.  The mobile app can be downloaded from Apple App Store and Google Play Store to smartphones and tablets with iOS and Android operating systems.

When customers open the app on their smartphones, it will show them all the nearby cabs and information about the length of their journey and the fare charged.  The selected cabbie will contact the customers directly via a phone call, from a number provided by the app, and the deal is made.