Dazhong rolls out cell phone ride-hailing cars
Print Edition
DAZHONG Taxi, one of the city’s largest cab companies, launched its own online ride-hailing application yesterday, assuring that all vehicles registered on the platform are licensed to operate.
By launching Dazhong Go, an Uber-like mobile-phone application, the traditional firm aims to draw customers away from emerging rivals with a properly licensed service.
As private car owners are not permitted to provide the profitable service under the current regulations, a large number of vehicles registered on Didi and Uber, two online car-hailing services in China, are actually driving in a “gray area,” which has triggered a debate about legalities and whether the public needs the service.
In addition to about 5,000 registered taxi drivers, the newly launched platform has 500 licensed vehicles — mid- or high-end car types — exclusively involved in the online car-hailing business. The cars can be identified by their unique car plate, which starts with “HuA.M.”
The drivers cannot pick up passengers who try to flag them down in the street.
Shanghai Daily ordered a ride via the platform at noon and it took about three minutes to be accepted.
Soon after a chauffeur wearing a black uniform rolled up in a new black Passat.
“You are my first passenger since I got the car yesterday,” the chauffeur, Fu Enda, 52, said with a big smile. Fu has worked as a taxi driver for Dazhong for 17 years. “We have to do a two-week training course before switching to the on-demand car-hailing business,” Fu said.
The ride was quite comfortable thanks to a spacious seat and there were also two bottles of water for passengers.
Around 9pm, when Shanghai Daily tried to order another car, there was no response for five minutes, and the order was automatically canceled.
In addition to cash, Alipay and WeChat payment, the platform accepts Mobile Union Pay, and each car is equipped with a point of sale machine, according to the company.
What is unique about Dazhong’s service is that you can get a printed receipt immediately after payment, as with a traditional taxi.
A 9-kilometer ride should cost 57 yuan (US$8.80), but the same ride would cost about 43 yuan on Didi, the biggest player in the car-hailing market in China, which also has discounts available.
Dazhong, however, is confident that it will not use discounts to attract customers.
Dazhong director Yang Guoping told Shanghai Daily the platform’s competitiveness lies in its licensed cars, qualified driver and good service.
“Many passengers are worried about what kind of cars are on those hailing platforms, while we can guarantee that all registered cars on our platform are licensed for business operation,” Yang said.
Yang said Dazhong will closely observe Didi and Uber as it develops its platform, as “learning from each other is important for Internet companies.” On the other hand, the 28-year-old taxi company will also benefit from its own experience in the offline market.
He added that the company is committed to ongoing driver training to improve service quality.
“We want to build a professional and full-time fleet,” Yang said, adding that they do not want part-time drivers. “Professionals can provide better service,” he said.
According to Dazhong, private car owners cannot currently work for the platform because their vehicles are not licensed to operate for profit.
On a visit to Jing’an Temple at 6pm, Shanghai Daily found that the company did not have enough online cars to meet demand. There were about four Didi vehicles available, but Dazhong had no drivers in the immediate area.
Ge Lei, a manager with Dazhong Go, said the company has signed agreements with other medium- and small-sized taxi companies to allow more access to the platform, and it will also cooperate with taxi companies in another 17 cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen, to further expand coverage.
The company expects to have more than 10,000 registered taxi companies on the platform, and 1,000 to 1,200 on-demand service vehicles in Shanghai. Yang expects there will be about 20,000 registered vehicles on the platform nationwide, half of them exclusively for online car-hailing.
The popularity in car-hailing services raises the question of supervision. On March 14, Chinese Minister of Transport Yang Chuantang said China is set to provide corresponding regulatory supervision as the sector develops.
“If private car owners want to provide profitable services to the public, matters concerning passenger safety and public service will be involved and that has to be regulated by certain laws and regulations,” he said. “In such a situation, we have to have corresponding supervision.
“According to the current guideline that we’ve drafted, we provide some approaches for private cars to serve as online car-hailing businesses. After being approved as operating vehicles, private cars will be allowed to undertake operational transport services.”
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