ST.PETERSBURG, July 2. /TASS/. Taxi drivers in Russia's second city have asked the local governor to ban controversial Uber, GetTaxi and other app-based, low-priced booking services.

"We are asking you to take urgent measures to ban such IT-companies as Uber in St. Petersburg, to support legal taxi drivers and to launch an inquiry into the work of such firms in our city," they said in an online letter to Governor Georgy Poltavchenko.

Taxi drivers said the city had turned "into a marketing battlefield with global app-based taxi services fighting for lower prices" which may lead to inevitable bankruptcy of traditional taxi firms.

They said they could follow the example of France, where two Uber managers were taken into custody on Monday after French taxi drivers went on a nationwide strike last week protesting against the low-cost operator.

French taxi drivers set tyres ablaze and blocked traffic, demanding that the authorities ban a fast-growing Uber service which allows motorists to use their cars to pick up passengers without paying for licences as traditional taxi drivers are obliged to do.