In the past, everyone used to be there
Discover when ready to go out
The subway is too crowded, the bus is too long, and the taxi is too expensive
But now
Hitchhiking seems to have perfectly solved the above troubles and become a new choice for everyone's travel. But with the popularity of hitchhiking, many problems have also come.
On February 25, the incident of "female college students refusing to increase the price of hitchhiking was intimidated" caused heated discussion among netizens on Weibo:
And this is no longer an implied safety risk in the hitchhiking trip
And the incident of the markup chaos was exposed for the first time
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From the breaking information of the consumer exposure platform, it was found that the hitchhiking platform was also complained by many users, among which the problem of the owner's private price increase during the cross-city trip was particularly prominent.
In view of this situation, the Nandu Shenzhen Big Event Trial Team selected the three platforms commonly used by consumers to provide hitchhiking services, didi chuxing and Haro chuxing, and conducted an experiential evaluation on the issue of hitchhiking price increases.
All three platforms have private price increases for car owners
The passenger does not agree to be refused boarding
As a hitchhiking passenger, the test team released a hitchhiking order expected to depart from Nanshan District of Shenzhen at 17:30 on three platforms at 15:00 on weekdays and accept carpooling orders for Yuexiu District in Guangzhou.
From the perspective of platform pricing
According to the platform big data, the whole journey is about 120 kilometers. Dida Travel's lowest pricing starts at 96 yuan, while Hello Travel and Didi Chuxing both cost more than 100 yuan, 100 yuan and 117.4 yuan respectively.
From the response time
● Didi Chuxing
Didi, the most expensive travel, also takes the longest time to wait for an order, about 30 minutes
● Tick-tock travel
The owner of the Dida platform responded the most quickly, and the owner picked up the car owner 3 minutes after the trial team released the itinerary
● Hello travel
Hello travels a little longer than Dida, but is also picked up within 10 minutes.
In order to eliminate the impact of the route, the test team conducted a second evaluation, the travel location remained unchanged, and the end of the trip was changed to Dongcheng District of Dongguan, and the same response speed ranking was obtained.
In order to verify whether the owner has privately increased the price
After the owner takes the order
The trial team communicates by phone and online
Confirm the itinerary information
The communication found that the owners of the three platforms all proposed a price increase and said that private transfers did not require transactions through the platform.
Specifically, after the test team confirmed the route, the owners of Dida Travel and Hello Travel proposed to charge a high-speed fee of 15 yuan and more than 10 yuan respectively, and all carpool passengers need to pay. The owner of Didi Chuxing said that he was a "professional" hitchhiker driver, and due to the recent rise in oil prices, the remuneration received by the owner from the platform could not cover the loss and empty warehouse return costs.
The trial team consulted the "Ride-sharing Convention" published by the three platforms, and the three platforms did not allow the owner to increase the price privately for any reason, and once it was verified, the owner would be punished by deducting credit points, restricting the owner from receiving orders, and even banning the account. In the high-speed fee generated in the cross-city order, Dida and Didi stated in the rules that the trip fee was included, and the passenger did not need to pay separately, and Hello explained that the cross-city high-speed fee was borne by the owner.
In this evaluation, the test team used the platform to stipulate that the car owner could not privately increase the price to the passengers, and questioned the owners of the three platforms, none of the car owners gave up the price increase request, and said that if the passengers did not agree to the additional fee, they would directly refuse to take the ride.
Hitchhiking fare increase into "industry rules"?
Car owners: Hidden costs affect travel motivation
Some car owners revealed that the price increase of the hitchhiking car has almost become the "rule".
In addition, the trial team analyzed the discussion of the owner of the tailwind from the major social media platforms and found that the owner believes that the additional cost of picking up passengers along the way mainly includes:
● Time cost
Such as knowing the route in advance, departing early, finding a suitable parking place, telephone communication, waiting for passengers, etc
● Necessary costs
Fuel consumption costs for detours due to transfers, additional losses on vehicles and cleaning costs in the vehicle
● Other risk costs
Such as passenger cancellations, illegal parking fines, etc., these hidden costs often affect the enthusiasm of car owners to participate in downwind travel
It is worth mentioning
The trial team found it on a short video platform
There are also many car owners expressed
It is hoped that the profit purpose can be achieved in the hitchhiking
Even share experiences of how to circumvent the rules of the platform to increase prices to passengers
In fact
The owner's arbitrary price increase not only violates the rules of the platform
Operate for profit
It also runs counter to the original intention of the relevant departments for the hitchhiking industry
As early as August 2016, the Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Deepening Reform and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Taxi Industry (Guo Ban Fa [2016] No. 58 Document) defined a ride-hailing vehicle as a shared travel mode in which "the ride-sharing service provider publishes travel information in advance, and people with the same travel route choose to take the shared passenger car of the ride-sharing service provider, share part of the travel cost or free mutual assistance".
Different from the passenger transport service of the online ride-hailing service, the hitchhiking particularly emphasizes the premise of the owner's travel needs, and does not pick up passengers with the same travel route for profit purposes.
However, as far as the current situation is concerned, the profit-seeking purpose of some car owners seems to have "changed the taste" of the hitchhiking car that was originally under the banner of "shared travel".
Pricing becomes the key to the platform's restrictions on illegal operations
Expert: It's up to the market
For the platform pricing standards, the test team asked the three platforms at the same time:
It means that the government has clear regulations on the nature of the hitchhiking, which is a mutual assistance and shared travel behavior that shares the fuel cost, and the platform is priced according to the regional situation according to the requirements of the government
True shun road and low pricing are the two essential characteristics of the hitchhiking, and the pricing level adopted by dida hitchhiking is only equivalent to 50% of the pricing of local professional operating vehicles, which offsets the basic cost of travel while restricting illegal operation of vehicles
In terms of pricing, Didi Shunfeng mainly shares the travel costs such as fuel costs and road and bridge fees of car owners, and comprehensively considers multiple factors to maximize the formulation of reasonable prices.
At the "Second China Ride-hailing Health Development Legal Forum" held on August 23, 2020, the industry held in-depth discussions on cost-sharing pricing. Yin Zhifang, chief expert of shared travel at the Scientific Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, said that the cost of car owners is not only the cost of fuel, but also the cost of waiting time, the cost of detours and the cost of communication.
"According to the spirit advocated by the current state, to give play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, as for the amount of apportionment, how much proportion of this part should be decided by the market, and the market is our enterprises and users."
Shen Lijun, president of the Urban Zhixing Information Technology Research Institute, pointed out:
"The cost-sharing rules are talking about to make the hitchhiking more compliant and distinguish it from illegally operating vehicles. When we formulate cost-sharing rules, we must make rules together on multiple platforms, so that such rules are universal. Market factors should be taken into account when formulating cost-sharing rules to make prices attractive. The healthy development of the industry, the spirit of Lei Feng may not be enough, but also need to have the market for mediation to guide the development of the healthy norms of the industry. ”
Judging from the evaluation of the trial team
Didi Chuxing, Dida Chuxing and Hello Chuxing
Three hitchhiking platforms
There have been acts of car owners privately increasing prices
This is not only a violation of the rules of the platform
Increase the cost of travel for consumers
At the same time, the demand of car owners for the profitability of hitchhiking
It also runs counter to the essence of sharing
As for the hidden costs incurred by the owner on the way, the platform, as the promoter of both sides of the carpool, should also reasonably balance the needs of both sides and return the hitchhiking to the essence of sharing.
Written by: Nandu trainee reporter Ye Linfang
Data analysis and content provision: Liu Jiayi, researcher of Nandu Shenzhen Big Thing Think Tank, and Zheng Shaochun, intern
Design: Xiaocong Liu
Editor: Qiu Xinyue
For more reports, please see the special topic: the special topic | Shenzhen consumer reputation list