This past weekend, the transition period of the new policy on online car-hailing officially ended and entered the official implementation stage. Transportation experts said that the implementation of the new policy may be "difficult to take a taxi" for a short time, but there is still potential for taxis and compliant online car-hailing to give vehicles and people who meet the new regulations some time to enter the market. After the market stabilizes, the government can determine whether there is a systemic shortage of transportation capacity. For problems such as people and vehicles that passengers report do not match, they can strengthen management through technical means such as facial recognition.
Journalist’s notes
The policy is very meticulous, and supervision requires joint efforts.
The appearance of the new policy is to make the online car-hailing market have laws to follow and allow the market to develop in an orderly manner, but in the final analysis, the ultimate goal is to provide passengers with safe and high-quality services, so that citizens can have more good choices for travel. The detailed policy has been implemented, and follow-up supervision and law enforcement are needed.
When it comes to regulatory means, in the "Internet +" era, in addition to strengthening traditional road supervision and law enforcement, relevant departments are bound to use a series of technological means to supervise enterprise platforms. However, no matter how advanced the technology is, it may also be exploited by others. As an enterprise, it is also the responsibility and obligation to use advanced technology to improve services and better cooperate with government supervision. A good competitive environment is conducive to the long-term and healthy development of online car-hailing, which benefits others and self.
As passengers, we should also protect ourselves and defend our rights and interests. When encountering a non-compliant car and discovering illegal behavior, learn to refuse and report it in a timely manner.
Question 1: Will prices continue to rise?
Wang Hao, deputy director of the Transportation Economics Office of the Highway Traffic Development Research Center of the Highway Science Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, said that the new regulations of Beijing’s online car-hailing clearly stipulate that the price of online car-hailing is a market auction. Therefore, the price increase or decrease is related to the supply and demand of the market. Whether the price increases or decreases depends on the future development. However, if the price rebounds, it is also a reasonable return. The relatively low price in the early stage is mainly due to the large-scale subsidies given by enterprises to cultivate the market, which has caused citizens to have a "misreading" of the price of online car-hailing.
Chen Yanyan, a professor at Beijing University of Technology and a transportation expert, said that whether prices rise is not necessarily related to the new policy, but is closely related to the market supply and demand relationship. If supply and demand are tight, prices will fluctuate, and the positioning of online car-hailing is already high. Therefore, prices will definitely not remain at the early level.
Question 2: Will "Difficult to Take a Taxi" Reappear?
Xu Kangming, the Ministry of Transport’s chief expert on deepening the reform of taxis, said that it may be difficult to take a taxi in the short term, but now the capacity of cruise taxis and compliant online taxis has not been fully released. Cruise taxis still have at least 10% to 15% of their potential. Some practitioners are still waiting. The current compliance of online taxis still has at least 20% of their potential. One of the reasons for this is also squeezed by non-compliant means. Therefore, it is necessary to allow legal and compliant vehicles to fully realize their potential, and at the same time give vehicles and personnel that meet the new regulations some time to enter the market.
After the market stabilizes, the government will be able to determine whether there is a systemic capacity shortage, and if there is a shortage of taxi capacity, it will consider adding cruise taxis or online taxis, Mr. Xu said. "At present, cruise taxis can handle 40 orders a day, while online taxi-hailing can only have a dozen orders a day. Therefore, from the perspective of improving transportation capacity, cruise taxis are still the first choice. If you invest another 5,000 cruise taxis, you can add 200,000 passengers a day." In addition, the cruise taxi government controls the price, and citizens can enjoy more low-cost taxi services, "Xu Kangming said.
Xu Kangming also said that the current rapid development of shared bicycles and cars has replaced the demand for some short-distance cruise taxis and online taxis, which in turn will release the total capacity of some taxis and ease some taxi hailing difficulties.
At the same time, with the withdrawal of non-compliant online car-hailing from the market, various platforms should promote cruise taxis and online car-hailing services, which will double the overall capacity of Beijing’s taxi market and is a win-win move.
Chen Yanyan also said that travel demand does not mean taxi demand, and citizens’ travel needs can be met in various ways, such as bicycles, buses, subways, etc. When there are fewer online car-hailing and prices are higher, a considerable number of passengers may shift to other modes of travel.
Question 3 How to supervise the inconsistency between people and vehicles?
Wang Hao said that the situation of inconsistent people and vehicles will bring potential safety hazards. First, the government should supervise and investigate through certain technical means. Second, the enterprise platform should supervise its own vehicles and personnel, and can monitor through advanced technical means, such as facial recognition. "Enterprises must strictly check online, offline personnel and vehicle personnel, and have the obligation to give corresponding prompts to passengers." Wang Hao said that the majority of passengers cannot ignore the sense of self-protection. When encountering inconsistent people and vehicles, passengers should refuse to take the car or complain, and can complain to the management department and platform, and then the management department and platform will punish the driver concerned.
Will part-time drivers still exist?
Chen Yanyan said that in the operation of online car-hailing, many people choose to work as part-time drivers when they have benefits. When the profit space decreases, some people will naturally give up. Whether part-time drivers can still exist in the future depends on the choice of specific cases.
Wang Hao said that after the regulations are implemented, they will be implemented in accordance with the regulations, so as to create a fair market environment. As long as all conditions are met, the "door" to part-time drivers is open. Whether to engage in part-time drivers depends on each driver’s own situation.
How big is the demand for online car-hailing?
Wang Hao said that demand cannot be viewed simply from the data provided by the platform. The situation of part-time, elastic supply and demand makes it difficult to determine the market demand for drivers and vehicles.
Chen Yanyan said that it is difficult to accurately say an absolute number. For example, the data of 200,000 or hundreds of thousands proposed by a platform was calculated at the original low price, which attracted passenger flow in stages from the price. Now the subway line network is constantly encrypted and the emergence of shared bicycles has diverted passenger flow. In the future, there will be new travel modes to fill the blank areas of public transportation and subway, and the filling method is not necessarily rental or online car-hailing. In the future, the concept of public travel will gradually develop.
Question 6 How to supervise illegal online car-hailing?
Xu Kangming said that for illegal online car-hailing, in addition to traditional road investigations, Internet means can also be adopted, such as direct investigation of the online car-hailing platform’s dispatch data and algorithms, to more effectively ensure law enforcement and protect the rights and interests of passengers.
Wang Hao said that after the new regulations on online car-hailing are officially implemented, enterprises should consciously take responsibility and implement them in accordance with government laws and regulations, and clean up non-compliant vehicles and people in a timely manner. After the new regulations are implemented, the online car-hailing platform should be connected to the regulatory platform, so that the regulatory authorities can grasp the data and real situation of the online car-hailing platform. At the same time, relevant departments must also strengthen road law enforcement and supervision.
Chen Yanyan said that at least in the short term, law enforcement can be increased by increasing law enforcement personnel. In the long run, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of technical means. For example, let the enterprise platform connect to the government supervision platform, and find violations in it through uploading data and big data analytics.
What will the future market landscape look like?
At present, in addition to Shouqi, Didi, Shenzhou, etc., Meituan and Cao Cao have joined the online car-hailing market one after another, and various places are also supporting their own online car-hailing platforms. What will the domestic online car-hailing market look like in the future?
Wang Hao said that this is a good phenomenon. After the regulations on online car-hailing, all online platforms engaged in the transportation industry have entered the market, which will make the market show a situation of mutual competition, rather than being monopolized by a certain one, which is conducive to the healthy development of the industry and is beneficial to the improvement of online and offline service levels, capabilities and quality in the future. After the market has rules, a benign competition landscape will be formed.
Beijing Morning Post reporter, Cao Jingrui
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