Ride-hailing is finally overtaking traditional taxis in China

Image uses photo from Pixabay.

Everyone knows that it’s coming, but in China the moment may finally be upon us: private-car ride-hailing trips are catching up to, and on the verge of overtaking, taxi trips.

That’s according to China’s Didi Chuxing, which said at an industry development seminar on Tuesday that in the more-thoroughly-developed ride-hailing markets across China, the number of private-car trips being booked across services like Didi and Uber is now more or less equal to the traditional taxi market.

Didi wants to use big data to create win-win technological solutions.

Needless to say, the rapid growth of the private-car ride-hailing market has put quite a squeeze on traditional cab companies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doomed. Although he might just have been telling his audience – which included representatives from taxi companies – what they wanted to hear, Didi VP Zhang Bei did say that Didi is looking at its successful private-car ride-hailing system and working on ways that it can deliver the same sort of experience using taxis. Didi already offers mobile taxi booking, of course, but he said that the ultimate goal would be to use the same kinds of algorithms that govern its private car fleet to make taxis operate more efficiently.

For example, Zhang said, “If we get two passengers along the same route into the same cab and give them each 40 percent off their fare, the driver can get 120 percent of the fee they’d usually earn. Didi wants to use big data to create win-win technological solutions and promote the fusion [of private-car and taxi systems].”

Didi also said it would invest US$15 million into a fund dedicated to developing integration between private-car ride-hailing and traditional taxi services. Given that the company has US$10 billion in its bank account, though, traditional taxi firms could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps integrating its private-car services with cabs isn’t Didi’s highest priority at the moment.