How far can the “crazy” hitchhiker “go” on a tick trip?

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From clichéd security breaches to the chaos that spawned

Written by/Editor by Li Xuanqi/Meng Huiyuan

Source: Zinc Scale

Dida travel has been active recently.

On the one hand, at the moment when carbon neutrality has become a hot topic, Dida Chuxing, with the symbol of “new travel road”, has also gained the popularity of the former, claiming to “let small acts, great achievements, and let the car be transformed into a car. ‘Follow the wind zero carbon car’, let you take orders along the way, and achieve carbon neutrality at your fingertips.”

On the other hand, according to recent information from Tianyancha, Beijing Changxing Information Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of “Dida Travel”, has undergone an industrial and commercial change, and Weilai Li Bin resigned as a director of the company. Before that, Li Bin took up his executive position in 2015.

However, just a month ago, Dida Travel’s hitchhiking business was once again exposed to safety accidents and driver-passenger disputes-on March 10, 2022, according to Fenghuang.com Storm Eye, passenger Ms. Lu was on the way to the Dida hitchhiker. When the checkpoint personnel checked the nucleic acid test report, because they did not cooperate with the driver and lied (the driver’s nucleic acid test result could not be found in Beijing Healthbao, he lied that he had done the nucleic acid test together with Ms. Lu in order to deceive the inspectors), and was unexpectedly arrested. The driver was left in the expressway emergency lane.

Difficult to reconcile the contradiction between the driver and the passenger, the gray positioning of the hitchhiker on the tip of the knife, the frequent safety incidents… All of them are tightly dragging Dida’s hind legs, and they have fallen into the whirlpool of public opinion again and again. Whether it is a major consumer complaint platform or a social platform, you can find several complaints and questions related to safety and costs by searching for “Dida Hitchhiking”.

And this kind of dissatisfaction has spread not only on the passenger side, but also on the driver side. In particular, some of the regulatory risks that Dida faces are being transferred from the platform side to the driver side. Some drivers said that when they completed the Dida ride-hailing order, they were caught The Traffic Administration Detachment identified it as illegal operation and fined it.

The hustle and bustle of the crowd is always a “dark cloud” that Dida has to face.

Share the cost and carpool privately with the driver, and the ride is not necessarily “downwind”

“The first time I used Dida, and the last time.” Zhou Xinyu (pseudonym) from Nanjing did not expect that the so-called “hitchhiker” would make people so distracted before using Dida to travel at the end of January 2022.

On January 31, 2022, Zhou Xinyu needed to take a car from Nanjing to Changzhou. Due to the long distance and the high fare, Zhou Xinyu decided to try the ride on Dida Travel, and prepaid 104 yuan for the fare. However, after getting on the bus, the driver told Zhou Xinyu that he needed to share the high-speed toll. “I didn’t use Dida before and didn’t understand the rules, and I agreed because the driver’s attitude was not negotiating.” What Zhou Xinyu didn’t understand was, “The driver asked me to pay the 20 yuan toll in private when I got off the bus. Show me the invoice.”

So, after getting off the bus, Zhou Xinyu consulted Dida Travel’s customer service about the high-speed fee for this trip, and was told that “your order is an intercity order, and the intercity carpool is to ensure safety, and it is required to give priority to the high-speed route. High-speed tolls/bridge tolls and other related expenses shall be borne by the car owner, and passengers do not need to bear any expenses other than the shared fare.”

This means that it is unreasonable for Zhou Xinyu to be asked by the driver to share the high-speed fee. But Zhou Xinyu’s experience is not an exception. Zinc scale searched on the black cat complaint and found that there have been more than 9,000 complaints related to Dida travel, among which there are many problems such as the allocation of high-speed tolls.

One of the consumers pointed out, “The 60-year-old man was inconvenienced after the operation, so I booked a ride on Dida (400 kilometers, 750 kilometers, exclusive price, 2 passengers but 3 passengers. As a result, the driver privately Carpooling, when the old man asked why the carpooling was in the process, he was asked to get off the car many times and had a violent argument. When he called me, he always pretended to save me the high-speed fee, but the cross-city high-speed fee was written in the ride-hailing regulations. It’s the owner’s responsibility.”

On social platforms such as Weibo, there are also many consumers who have questioned, “Why does the current Dida ride have passengers sharing the high-speed fee?”, “The car that was called three days in advance, the remarks did not add the passenger sharing the high-speed. As a result, I called on the morning of the departure day and told me that I would be late and would need to share the high-speed toll equally. I asked the driver why he wanted to share the toll, and he said, ‘Everyone else will give it, you can’t justify it if you don’t give it. On the platform, there is probably no lower limit for the recruitment of drivers, and the high-speed fee is only required to get on the bus.

Prior to this, there were also similar incidents in the media. In 2021, The Paper reported, “A passenger in Guangdong booked a ride on Dida Travel, and was beaten by the driver because he refused to pay the high-speed toll many times during the ride, and the driver wanted to take his mobile phone during the ride. Pay the fee.” Although the official Dida Travel said, “The fare has been refunded to the passenger and the owner’s account has been suspended.”

But this problem continues to occur, and it has become a difficult problem that Dida Travel has never been able to control.

In fact, cities across the country have relevant regulations for sharing the cost of ride-hailing. Take the “Chongqing Interim Regulations on Regulating Private Passenger Car Co-Ride Travel” as an example, which clearly mentions that “shared travel costs are limited to vehicle fuel costs and tolls. No time billing or any other fees shall be charged for the vehicle’s fuel cost. The fuel cost of the vehicle shall be calculated according to the comprehensive operating condition fuel consumption per 100 kilometers, the real-time fuel price, and the mileage of the shared vehicle registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; the toll shall be calculated according to the The direct cost of road and bridge passage on the road section shall be calculated according to the actual situation.”

When addressing issues related to ridesharing, the Ministry of Transport has repeatedly reiterated that rideshares are non-operating passenger passenger services, and that rideshares should meet the requirements of “not for profit, sharing part of travel costs or free mutual assistance”.

However, high-speed fees and other fees have always been in a gray area. Even if Dida Chuxing, as the platform, clearly stated that “the high-speed fees for intercity carpooling should be borne by the car owners”, the problem that a large number of drivers privately require passengers to pay high-speed fees is difficult for the platform to supervise. A problem has been continuously exposed, and the platform has not made specific changes.

In addition to the cost-sharing controversy, many of Dida’s drivers also privately carpool, as mentioned by passengers above. And Zinc Scale found through the black cat complaint that there are still drivers who will take orders on multiple platforms for carpooling: “Using Dida Travel to hitch a ride, basically I encounter this kind of disgusting thing every time – the driver will use other ride-hailing software. Pick up other passengers. Then there are other passengers in the car for no reason. On the one hand, the price of carpooling is different, and on the other hand, passengers are not aware of it, which will delay the passenger’s journey.”, “On March 13, I placed an order from Xiamen Island to Tong’an Hot Spring Pavilion. Tickets for the hot spring pavilion come in at 1 o’clock and start at 12 o’clock. The whole journey takes 40 minutes. There is no carpooling order when placing an order. As a result, the driver took orders and carpooled on other platforms without permission, and it was a waste of time for pick-up and detour. I arrived The hot spring hall has passed its time, and an additional 60 yuan is paid!”…

Illegal operation or reasonable carpooling?

If the dissatisfaction on the passenger side has become a commonplace, the driver’s doubts about Dida travel are also spreading. An important background is that on July 26, 2016, the General Office of the State Council promulgated the “Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Deepening Reforms and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Taxi Industry”, pointing out that ride-hailing has the characteristics of mutual benefit and distinguishes it from online car-hailing. . Therefore, since the mutually beneficial positioning of ride-hailing is different from that of profitable online car-hailing, its legitimacy is often difficult to define.

Dida Travel’s previous prospectus also disclosed that Dida’s ride-hailing platform has received a total of 77 administrative fines, ranging from RMB 5,000 to RMB 30,000 each time, with a cumulative fine of RMB 2.07 million. The administrative fine imposed by the local transportation authority is alleged to be based on the lack of relevant licenses issued by the licensing system applicable to ride-hailing services, presumably due to the obvious similarities between ride-hailing and ride-hailing.”

And many ride-hailing owners have also been caught and fined for allegedly operating illegally. According to a previous report by the “New Business School”, there was a Zhengzhou owner of a Dida hitchhiker who was forcibly seized by the law enforcement brigade on Zhihu. He said that he wanted to go to the administrative reconsideration, but he did not know whether it would be successful. “The platform will not help you, absolutely not.” One respondent said that he had also been arrested for a ride and reported to the platform as soon as possible, but the result was of no use.

Zinc scale also found a similar case on the black cat complaint, a driver said on the black cat complaint, “I was about to complete the Dida ride-hailing order at about 11:55 on February 21, 2022. It was found that I was operating illegally. At that time, the car was impounded, and a notice of violation was issued. The fine was at least 10,000 yuan. I think I am not at fault as a car owner. Connected to the shared fuel cost, this is a car-sharing relationship, but the transportation department said it is illegal operation. I think the Dida Hitchhiker platform is also responsible. The Dida Hitchhiker clearly states that the registration only requires a qualified vehicle driver’s license and the driver’s license is healthy. I can take orders, I don’t need a driver’s license and a car-hailing transportation license, so I took the order, but I was fined.”

In this regard, the above-mentioned driver believes that “Dida Travel also asked me to complete the order under the risk of high fines. Not only did it not stop the undocumented people from taking the order, but also provided the passenger’s contact method. I I received orders according to their procedures, and I was fined by the Transportation Bureau in the process of completing the order. I think Dida Hitchhiking Platform should bear part of the fine for me.”

On the one hand, the “grey” aspect is part of the regulatory risk that Dida faces, which is being transferred from the platform side to the driver side.

According to the company’s investigation, there are currently 59 administrative penalties, most of which are engaged in online car-hailing business activities without authorization or in disguise. A ticket issued by the Kunming Taxi Administration showed that Dida was fined 10,000 yuan for “not obtaining the “Online Taxi Booking Business License” and engaging in online car-hailing business activities. Therefore, as mentioned earlier in the “Yu Jian Column”, perhaps Dida’s hitchhikers are not all real “hitchhikers”.

And this point was also pointed out in a previous article of “Car Home”. With the rise of online car-hailing, black car drivers are also being differentiated and transformed. Some drivers have entered the field of ride-hailing, disguised as “drop-in car owners”. “Active on major platforms. Among them, passengers encountered a “black car in the coat of a hitchhiker” when booking a ride on Dida Travel.

Frequent safety problems, walking on the tip of the knife

From the intractable contradictions between drivers and passengers to the inability to define the legitimacy of its own positioning, Dida Travel’s ride-hailing business seems to always be on the “tip”. After all, in the C2C mode of ride-hailing, it is easy for the driver and passenger to reach a private transaction. The driver bypasses the platform to take orders and avoid platform supervision, which means uncontrollable risks. And the security issues it faces are more like the sword of Dalymus hanging over Tick’s head.

In fact, many media have also pointed out that the rise of Dida travel has a certain element of luck. In 2018, Didi’s ride-hailing business was removed from the shelves for rectification, and Dida got an opportunity at this time. From the perspective of revenue data, in 2017, Dida Travel’s commission-based revenue was only 48.935 million, but in 2019, this figure reached 581 million yuan.

However, it is also from 2019 that Dida Travel has been frequently exposed to safety issues.

Zinc scale finishing public reports found: According to The Paper, in 2019, a passenger was slashed with a knife by the driver of the Dida Travel; in September of the same year, a passenger in Shenzhen was molested by the driver while using the Dida ride business, and the driver is not qualified to operate;

According to Phoenix News, in mid-August 2021, another Dida travel platform user was threatened by the driver with a stick because of a dispute with the driver while riding the Dida ride. A Shanghai female passenger posted a long post on social media complaining about the potential safety hazards on the Dida travel platform, saying that because the Dida platform driver suspected of soliciting customers across platforms and abusing passengers, the passenger finally chose to jump…

Therefore, although Song Zhongjie, the founder of Dida Travel, once had expectations for Dida rides, he must maintain the “shared nature” of Dida rides. From the clichéd security loopholes to the various chaos that breeds, the crazy tick travel is gradually drifting away from this beautiful expectation.

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