Car hailing company must use technology to guarantee safety

A DRIVER EMPLOYED BY DIDI, the largest car hailing company in China, has confessed to raping and murdering a female customer on Saturday in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. Three months ago, an air stewardess was raped and murdered by a car hailing driver, who had registered the car with Didi under his father's name, in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan province. Qianjiang Evening comments:

That the two victims had both reported the threats they faced to Didi's customer services before the drivers killed them speaks volumes of the fatal loopholes in the company's management.

It is too early to sentence the whole car hailing industry to death, as it can be predicted that illegal and unlicensed private cars would soon fill in the vacancy left by the car hailing companies after their exit, which would pose even greater safety risks.

The car hailing companies and the administrative departments should think of using technology and big data to guarantee customers' safety.

Reportedly, Didi received 25 million orders from hundreds of millions of customers in more than 400 cities in China every day last year, which means it handles massive amounts of data on a daily basis.

To restore people's confidence in it, the company has no choice but to improve safety, and to do that it should use technology.

But Didi has shown no inclination of doing that. Its way of seeking to repair the damage done to its image is to dismiss the senior executives of the customer services department and promise high compensation to the victims' families.

As some foreign car hailing companies do, Didi can add a one-button alarm function in its app so customers can get help if necessary. It takes just one tap on the screen to inform the police instantly that the car hailing passengers need help as well as giving their real time location.