(Beijing) – Car-hire app companies in the southern city of Shenzhen have agreed to cooperate with a government order to stop letting private drivers use their apps to arrange rides.

Transport and police officials met with representatives of Didi-Kuaidi, Uber and Yidao Yongche, companies that offer the popular apps for arranging rides, on August 31 to deliver the order, an official said.

Transport officials told the firms that private cars have been found illegally using the apps to provide services, the transport official said. The companies were then told to stop the activity.

The government also ordered the firms to provide detailed information on the vehicles and drivers they cooperate with.

The companies agreed to cooperate, the official said.

The car-hire industry has grown rapidly but in a legal gray area in China over the past year and a half.

The country's urbanites are booking more than 4 million rides on car-hire apps every day, the company that offers the Didi-Kuaidi apps said. That firm dominates the market in China, outpacing the U.S. company Uber.

Many city dwellers like the apps because they provide another transport option, but taxi firms have complained to the government they are illegal and hurting business. The governments of Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai have also taken measures to rein in the new industry.

Transport officials in the southern city of Guangzhou raided Uber's offices in April on the grounds the company was illegally letting private drivers provide rides.

Officials in the capital told Didi-Kuaidi in June that car-hire services broke the law, whether or not the cars were owned by individuals or car rental companies. The next month Beijing officials told both Didi-Kuaidi and Uber that they are suspected of evading taxes and breaking the law by offering the car-hire services.

Shanghai officials have developed a pilot program for the industry and submitted their proposal to transport officials for their approval, a person close to regulators said. That experiment would allow an arrangement that sees vehicles belonging to auto rental companies and drivers from temporary labor agencies provide rides, but ban private cars from the industry.

The central government is also mulling ways to regulate car-hire services, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The country's minister of transport, Yang Chuantang, said in March that the central government would establish guidelines for the business, but they have not appeared yet.

(Rewritten by Guo Kai)