Didi Kuaidi wants to make ‘tech buses’ a common commuter option in China

Just a few weeks after its private car service went fully legal in Shanghai, Didi Kuaidi has today announced another big step outside of its bread and butter taxi-hailing business: this time, it’s buses.

The newly-launched Didi Bus service works with tourism companies and bus leasing firms to offer rides on 51-seat, wifi-equipped coaches. According to a statement released earlier today, Didi Kuaidi claims an average bus ride will cost between RMB 7 and RMB 13 (US$1.10 to US$2.04), making the ride cheaper than a taxi – or Didi Kuaidi’s own car-hailing service.

Avoiding public buses

With this new offering, Didi Kuaidi has been careful to note that it seeks to complement, not replace, existing Chinese public bus infrastructure. Didi Bus isn’t meant to be taken a block or two – the routes so far have been the longer, less wieldy sort, like daily commutes, trips from city centers to airports, or jaunts out to tourist destinations.

As part of its focus on commuters, Didi Kuaidi is making tailored versions of Didi Bus available to large firms in China so that they can organize comfortable buses for their employees’ daily commutes. Firms such as Lenovo and Huawei are using it already.

Private buses of that sort are proving controversial in Silicon Valley, where they’re called “tech buses” as they’re mostly used by web giants such as Facebook and Google, but they’re uncontroversial (and already very common) in China.

Didi Bus first launched as a WeChat-based service in Beijing and Shenzhen this summer in a trial program. It now provides more than 1,500 daily rides in the two cities and has served more than 500,000 users since the beta initial launch.

With the official launch today, Didi Bus announced plans to expand into new cities and develop new routes, although the company has not released any specifics.