Taxiapp.lu offers an application and website, connecting people to a central booking centre where they can select a taxi in Luxembourg based on its proximity and price.

“Taxiapp.lu is an application that works with existing taxis, so it is a legal alternative to Uber,” the Luxembourg startup wrote on its website.

The platform comes after Luxembourg overhauled its taxi system in 2016 to make pricing more transparent and weed out illegal taxis.

Popular ride hailing platform Uber, which is operational in Paris, Brussels and Berlin, never quite made it to Luxembourg because of its strict rules on taxis and rental cars with drivers. Under the taxi reform, taxis can only operate in new licensed hones with a limited number of licences issued.

Furthermore, rental cars with a driver cannot operate rides under one hour. Uber has held talks with Luxembourg policymakers but nothing concrete has emerged. In the past, mobility minister François Bausch said he was not opposed to Uber-like services but was concerned with drivers working illegally and without security benefits.