Wendy Tang
The Chinese authorities are planning to implement countrywide regulations to curb the use of Internet-based ride-hailing services, according to news website Jiemian.com
The report on Wednesday said The Ministry of Transport of China is drafting regulations which will go after ride-hailing companies, their cars and their drivers. The cars and the service platforms will be required to have transportation permits and drivers will need to have taxi licenses, in addition to an operation permit for their cars.
Wei Jigang, researcher from the Industrial Economics Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council of China, told jieman.com that the Chinese government was responding to two areas of concern in drafting these regulations.
The first area is to ensure a fair and competitive environment for all concerned parties. At the moment, Internet platforms are able to offer their car-hailing service at a lower price than private car service companies. The government wants to regulate all the services by requiring all drivers to have a taxi license.
The second area is to ensure ride-hailing companies are abiding by traffic laws. In order to protect passenger safety, authorities will now request for the identity of the private car drivers, in addition to information concerning the condition of their cars and real time location access.
The new regulations will allow private car owners to legally operate their vehicles as substitute taxis after fulfilling permit requirements.
The new regulations will directly affect China’s largest ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi), which has seven million drivers using the service as of September 5, according to Economic Information Daily.
Didi Chuxing’s competitor, Uber, has 660,000 registered cars in Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hangzhou.