{"id":24267,"date":"2018-12-04T12:28:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T12:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24267"},"modified":"2018-12-04T12:28:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T12:28:12","slug":"careem-launches-new-bus-booking-service-in-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24267","title":{"rendered":"Careem launches new bus-booking service in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"97.0336426914\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Middle East ride-hailing company Careem said it has launched a bus-booking service in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/egypt.html\">Egypt<\/a> and would soon expand it into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/saudi-arabia.html\">Saudi Arabia<\/a> and Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Users of the &#8220;Careem Bus&#8221; app select their pick-up and drop-off location and track the bus along dedicated routes, the Dubai-based company said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">It offers fixed rate fares between 60 percent and 70 percent cheaper than those on the separate car service, it added. The company will use 13-seater buses at the start of its operation in the country. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Communal ride-sharing options are not new in the country, where homegrown start-ups provide on-demand shuttle bus services for local commuters in Cairo. Careem&#8217;s rival Uber, too, has a significant market share in Egypt with its services.<\/p>\n<p>But Careem said on Monday it hopes Cairo and the rest of Egypt could use more such solutions to ease mobility.<\/p>\n<p>According to an international survey, quoted by the company, 40 percent of the Egyptian population is not being served by proper transportation that suits their need.<\/p>\n<h2>Expanding projects \u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>The launch comes more than a year after Careem invested $500,000 in Egyptian tech start-up Swvl, which offers bus-booking services on its own mobile app. Careem said it had since divested the stake.<\/p>\n<p>Swvl announced last month it was planning to expand to Southeast Asia after securing &#8220;tens of million of dollars&#8221; in its latest funding round.<\/p>\n<p>Careem competes in many major Middle East cities with San Francisco-headquartered Uber Technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Reuters news agency reported last month that Careem has been working with investment bank Jefferies as an adviser on investment options and fundraising, including a potential merger and acquisition deal in the region with Uber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<p>\n            SOURCE:<br \/>\n            <span>Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Middle East ride-hailing company Careem said it has launched a bus-booking service in Egypt and would soon expand it into Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Users of the &#8220;Careem Bus&#8221; app select their pick-up and drop-off location and track the bus along dedicated routes, the Dubai-based company said in a statement. It offers fixed rate fares&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}