Reporter investigation： It is difficult to return to taxi hailing in various places. What should be done to reflect on the new policy of online car hailing？
CCTV News(Reporter, Wang Jiazu, Li Wenliang, Wang Xiaoying, Gao Yuting, Intern, Qi Chenji) "It has always been suggested that there are no cars nearby." This is a common feeling among many citizens who choose to ride online recently. Even during off-peak hours, it is not easy to take a taxi, and "the time to call a car has become longer" is becoming the norm in many cities.
Data from Didi Chuxing shows that the difficulty of hailing a taxi in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has increased to varying degrees. In June this year, the difficulty of morning and evening peak taxi hailing in four places increased by 12.4%, 17.7%, 13.2% and 22.5% respectively compared with the same period last year. In Beijing, after the implementation of the new policy of online car-hailing, the passenger order of online car-hailing platforms fell by about 10%.
A year after the implementation of the new policy on online car-hailing, there are various signs that the previously surprising golden period of online car-hailing development is rapidly coming to an end. In some cities, online car-hailing is difficult to get, and drivers must increase their fares to accept orders. And the behavior of traditional taxis such as refusal and bargaining has not been significantly improved by the legalization of online car-hailing.
What’s wrong with the online car-hailing market, and how should it be managed? Can returning to "taxi-hailing difficulty" make relevant departments reflect on the new policy?
A citizen uses a taxi app to get a ride in Xidan, Beijing. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Xulei
Online taxi: "There are no cars available nearby"
On July 27, 2016, the Ministry of Transport and seven ministries jointly promulgated the Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Booking Taxi Business Services (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"). China became the first country in the world to recognize the legal status of online car-hailing nationwide. Subsequently, detailed implementation rules have been issued in various parts of China. According to media statistics, 133 cities have announced new policies on online car-hailing.
Recently, CCTV reporters visited the online car-hailing market in many cities in China and found that the number of online car-hailing has decreased significantly since the implementation of the New Deal for more than a year, making it difficult to take a taxi.
From August 19th to 22nd, the reporter tried to play Didi Express at different times and locations in Beijing for three consecutive days. Only around 10 am on the 19th, a driver took the order at Chaoyangmen Subway Station in Chaoyang District and came within two minutes. The rest of the time, such as the morning peak on the 21st, at Landianchang South Road, Haidian District, the order with Didi Express has always been displayed as "no car available nearby"; at 7 pm on the 22nd, at the south of Hangkong Bridge, Didi Express also displayed "no car available nearby".
At the same time in Jinan, Shandong Province, the reporter used Didi to take a taxi many times with only one success. At 7:30 am on the 22nd, Yanzi West Road, with Didi to call an order, no one took the order twice in a row, showing "no car available nearby". At around 8 o’clock, there was still no one taking the order at the intersection of Ping and Shandong University, which also showed "no car available nearby". In addition, the reporter also found in real time in many other areas that the mobile phone client side showed that the express train "There are fewer vehicles nearby and the waiting time is long". Only at 3 pm on the 22nd, the reporter used Didi to call a taxi near Qianfoshan Hospital in Shandong Province.
At around 3:00 pm on August 24, the reporter used Didi Taxi to book a taxi in Anning District, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, and tried three times without anyone taking the order. Then he used Didi Express four times, each time at an interval of 5 minutes, and still no one answered. Most of the time, the map showed that there were no vehicles nearby.
That day in Yinchuan City, Ningxia, the reporter sent out orders during off-peak hours. The mobile phone software showed that the vehicle would arrive within 1 to 4 minutes, making it easier to take a taxi. However, in places slightly away from the city, such as Beita Lake, Huabo Park, and Shenyang Road, no one answered the order after 1 minute.
Why is it not easy to play online car-hailing? The subsidy is less, and the threshold is higher.
Compared with the "golden period" two years ago, online car-hailing is obviously not so easy to get. What is the reason?
Mr. Zong, 33, lives in the high-tech zone of Jinan City. He is a part-time driver of Didi Express and has been driving fast for more than a year. At first, he took the car to join the express team because his friend had a good income from driving fast. He said that at that time, because of various subsidies, his income was very good. At one point, he wanted to quit his job to drive fast. The most impressive order was to pull passengers to catch the train during peak hours, and the customer gave 2.5 times the reward.
But this year, the "money scene" has begun to dim. He is glad that he did not quit his job. Many of his friends who drove fast cars in the past have already found other jobs. Mr. Zong believes that the main reason for the current lack of online car-hailing is that subsidies are less, and driving cannot earn money.
"Sometimes I work until the early morning at night, and sometimes I can earn about 100 yuan for running on weekends. If I make this money, if I get a violation of regulations or something, I won’t be able to scratch it." Mr. Zong said that in the future, it will depend on how the implementation rules of Jinan are determined. According to the requirements in the exposure draft, his own private car will definitely not meet the conditions, and the cost will definitely increase greatly if it is converted to a operating vehicle. If it is not cost-effective, it will not be opened.
Mr. Li of Yinchuan, Ningxia, has been running an express car for three years with his own 50,000 yuan private car. He chose to change careers this year because "there is no subsidy and he can’t make money." Mr. Li told reporters that many people buy cars worth tens of thousands of yuan to run Didi Express. According to the rules, the peers he knows are not up to standard.
A staff member of an online car-hailing agency in Yinchuan City told reporters that the current Didi platform has begun to block the express numbers of substandard vehicles one after another. Among the drivers of Didi Express in Yinchuan, 80% of the cars or drivers do not meet the online car-hailing standards.
The decrease in the number of online car-hailing, on the one hand, makes consumers feel that the car is not easy to play, but also makes other express drivers who choose to stay feel better. In Beijing, Yu Sijia, who was born in 1989, has been driving online car-hailing for a year and a half. At the end of last year, he successfully obtained the online car-hailing driver qualification certificate with a high score of 90 points. He told reporters that even if he has a good order income on weekdays, he still likes to take orders at night, because there are fewer owners who come out to take orders than in the past.
Mr. Yang of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, who bought an Audi A4 sports car, said that compared with the past, there are significantly fewer people in sports cars, and the work is easier than before, because the threshold has been raised. "You drive a car with tens of thousands of dollars to run a special car. To be honest, it is not fair to us. Fortunately, many people quit after the details came out."
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Expert consultation: The threshold should be kept as low as possible
Is it right to strictly control online car-hailing through high thresholds? Is there any indisputable place in the new policy of online car-hailing?
According to data from the Ministry of Communications, there are currently more than 130 online car-hailing platform companies planning to carry out online car-hailing business, and 19 online car-hailing platform companies have obtained business licenses in relevant cities, but only 100,000 online car-hailing driver licenses have been issued in various places. On the demand side, as of December last year, the number of online taxi booking users reached 225 million. A mere 100,000 licensed online car-hailing drivers are facing the demand of more than 200 million people. Even with taxis, the contradiction between supply and demand in the market is also very sharp.
"The regulations of’Beijing Renjing License ‘and’Shanghai Renren Shanghai License’ have caused a large number of original online car-hailing drivers to be unable to continue on the road, resulting in a serious imbalance between supply and demand," Ye Qing, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, told CCTV. Professor Ye Qing has written to the National Two Sessions for eight consecutive years to demand "bus reform" and is known as the first person in China’s bus reform. He said: "The management department has relatively high requirements for online car-hailing, but I think there is a way to solve this problem, that is, what is the standard of taxis in the city? The standard of online car-hailing is based on this standard, which is not lower than or parallel to the taxi standard, because a city’s taxis should pay attention to both economy and safety."
Ye Qing said that too harsh conditions are suspected of being unfair. As long as the driver of the online car-hailing car has no illegal record and meets the driving age and other conditions, he can drive the online car-hailing car after passing the test. "To improve the online car-hailing system, especially when formulating regulations at the local level, the threshold should be lowered as much as possible."
Cheng Huiqiang, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, also said in an interview with the media that the government should conduct big data analytics and urban transportation capacity assessments while strengthening supervision, so that the transportation capacity can be matched with the city’s transportation operation to meet the public’s travel needs.
Xu Kangming, the Ministry of Transport’s chief expert on deepening taxi reform, told the media that if the city’s transportation capacity can be fully tapped, the problem of taxi-hailing difficulties can be solved. He believes that the transportation capacity of cruise taxis and compliant online car-hailing has not been fully released. It is necessary to let the full potential of legal compliance be realized, and at the same time, it is necessary to allow some time for vehicles and personnel that meet the new regulations to enter the market.