Didi’s master plan to win over local Chinese governments – with data

A road heat map from Didi’s big data traffic platform. Photo credit: Didi Chuxing, modified by Tech in Asia.

The security at Didi Chuxing’s headquarters is surprisingly tight for a ride-hailing company. Every visitor going in and out of its Beijing office – an enormous block of blue-tinted glass – has to register their name, contact and work information, take a selfie, and be accompanied by office personnel. The security guards are vigilant, stopping me at entrances to check for my visitor’s pass.

“We’re paying more attention to data security,” explains one of the PR spokespeople. The company is placing increasing importance on data integrity, even conducting mandatory workshops for staff, she says.

Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing company, has virtually no competitors left in the domestic ride-hailing industry. According to CNIT Research figures from Q3 2016, the Beijing-based company controls 94.6 percent of the market. Launched in 2012, Didi’s taxi-hailing business has evolved to include car rentals, shuttles, private cars, and other kinds of transportation services. It’s also raised a dizzying amount of capital from big investors such as Alibaba, Foxconn, and Apple – and just announced another US$5.5 billion dollars in funding this week.

In 2015, the company merged with its then largest domestic rival, Kuaidi Dache, bringing together respective investors Tencent and Alibaba after a vicious price war. Last year, it acquired archrival Uber China, in a deal worth US$35 billion.

Having all but conquered the domestic market, the Beijing-based unicorn is now turning its focus inward, towards the terabytes of data generated through its app everyday.

“If the driver is nodding off, we want to know,” says Zhang Wensong, senior vice president and chairman of Didi’s engineering committee. “We can improve the overall safety of our system.”

If the driver is nodding off, we want to know.

In a meeting on Tuesday with media, Wensong revealed that Didi is developing a “safe driving system” – essentially a camera that monitors the road in front of and behind the car while recording GPS information. It’s meant to supplement Didi’s already massive volume of traffic data, which includes more than 20 million rides daily in over 400 cities in China. In comparison, Uber was reported to have 40 million monthly riders worldwide as of last October.

The finer-grain image data will match road conditions with driver behavior, so that drivers aren’t penalized for erratic driving – like swerving or a sudden U-turn – if it’s situational. According to Didi, 200 units are currently out on the roads being tested.

“The one facing forward will be used to check the road lane – is the driver following the lane or zigzagging back and forth?” explains Wensong. The camera can also detect sudden breaking, and check the distance between cars. “Drivers can’t be too close to the car in front of them,” he adds.

Additionally, Didi’s new device could potentially collect a wealth of data about driver behavior. Wensong says that the company is working on “human action recognition,” which could be used to identify signs of fatigue in drivers, though a company spokesperson later told Tech in Asia that Didi is currently not recording anything that happens inside the vehicle.

Passengers wait by a designated lane for ride-sharing services at Shenzhen Bao’an Airport. Photo credit: Didi Chuxing.

Beyond cars

Wooing the government