'Flexible measures needed' to handle car-hailing issue

Cities tighten restraints, saying Didi Kuaidi, Uber continue to operate without license

Urban management and transportation authorities in Chinese cities should use practical and flexible measures to deal with changes made to the taxi market by car-hailing services such as Didi Kuaidi and Uber, experts said.

"Many urban commuters are fond of Didi Kuaidi and Uber because they offer convenient and economical alternatives to taxis," Zhang Changqing, director of the Institute of Traffic and Transportation Laws under Beijing Jiaotong University, said on Friday.

"But government departments have concerns over the emerging businesses' legality and safety," he said.

"The conflict lies in the inconsistency between the current regulations and the public's actual needs.

"It will be very difficult to make a taxi industry reform plan that can suit all Chinese cities, so city administrators should produce their own plan based on their jurisdiction's actual conditions, and the measures should be realistic, flexible and reasonable," Zhang suggested.

Zhou Hanhua, a researcher at the Institute of Law under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the situation faced by the burgeoning ride-on-demand service is like that of the Taobao online shopping platform in its first years.

"Many of the Taobao store owners have no license, but the platform has helped create at least 20 million jobs," he said. "The authorities should think about Taobao's experience and they will know how to deal with the car-hailing business."

Their remarks came as Beijing and Shanghai recently tightened restraints on what authorities say are unlicensed operations and tax evasion by Didi Kuaidi and Uber.

Eight departments in Beijing, including the transportation management and commerce bureaus, met with managers from Didi Kuaidi and Uber on Thursday, saying the companies are involved in unapproved for-profit operations, tax violations and the sending of junk text messages.

The companies' managers said they are willing to cooperate with the authorities and pledged to check and regulate their businesses.

This has been the third time this year that Didi Kuaidi has been summoned by government departments in the capital.

In Shanghai, a crackdown on unlicensed ride services was launched in mid-July, with drivers signed up with Didi Kuaidi and Uber being the main target. Each driver would be fined 10,000 yuan ($1,610) and have their driving license held by the police for at least three months if he or she was caught, while the company the driver signed up with would have to pay a 100,000 yuan fine.

Didi Kuaidi, created in a merger in February between former rivals Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache, boasts around 160 million users on its smartphone platforms and provides up to 5.5 million trips a day.

Traffic police and transportation inspectors in Beijing have caught more than 1,200 drivers who used Didi Kuaidi platforms to conduct unlicensed operations this year.

Authorities in other cities, such as Wuhan and Yangzhou, have also requested that the company stop using private cars to provide chauffeur and car-sharing services and asked it to regulate its businesses in accordance with laws and regulations.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn