As the seven-day China National Day holiday approaches, Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing platform, on Friday announced that it will add new technologies to its safety system. The new measures are an effort to safeguard both passengers and drivers.
About 650 million Chinese are expected to take road trips for the National Day holiday, aka “Golden Week”, stretching from October 1 to October 7, according to the Ministry of Transport of the PRC.
In May, a 24-year-old female passenger in Southern Chinese city, Shenzhen was killed while using Didi Shunfengche, raising public concerns over safety while using ride-hailing apps.
Didi now has many features put in place in the area of passenger safety. It introduced an alarm button that appears on the app interface when a trip is going on, enabling passengers to send out messages and calls if they feel threatened.
A handful of more high-tech measures are being used In Didi’s current upgrades, especially in the Didi “Shunfengche” service, the carpooling service arm of Didi.
Drivers of Didi Shunfengche must pass the system’s facial recognition before he or she can car pool on the Didi platform. In order to make sure the steering wheels of carpooling drivers on Didi are only in the hands of registered drivers, Didi requires facial recognition before a carpooling trip.
Aside from facial recognition, Didi has real-name authentication of drivers and passengers. It also gives phone calls to passengers on night intercity trips, to safeguard drivers and passengers.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)