In an effort to regulate the taxi hailing industry in Beijing, the Beijing Municipal Traffic Commission has officially approved four taxi hailing apps and banned the process of customers bidding for a cab.
The four approved taxi hailing startups are Didi Dache, Yida Dache, Yibu Jiaoche, and Yaoyao Zhaoche.
These companies enable customers to search for the nearest taxi, send a pickup request to the driver, and receive real-time notification once the driver accepts.
These four apps are now included in Beijing's official taxi hailing portal 96106.
Getting the "approved" status isn't that easy, in addition to the regulations the companies had to comply, the four companies have to add "96106" as a prefix to their name for them to serve customers in Beijing. Also, the voice chat feature that enables a customer to talk to a driver will now be removed.
Currently, customers can quote a bid amount while requesting for a taxi pick up. Because of this bidding process, cab requests weren't treated equally by the drivers. Now, Beijing government has banned this process.
All four approved apps can now charge a booking service fee of 5 Yuan (within four hours) or 6 Yuan (four hours in advance). This decision will make the cab drivers consider all cab requests equally.
Other taxi hailing apps in Beijing that weren't approved include Kuaide Dache and Dache Xiaomi.
This decision from the Beijing government comes at the time when players like Uber is planning to launch its service in Beijing, Shangai and other places in Asia.
Tnooz spoke to Yaoyao Zhaoche regarding this update,
What happens to competitors like Kuaide Dache and Dache Xiaomi who have raised funding?
These two apps do not qualify the standards of Beijing government. What I heard is Dache Xiaomi is taking efforts to make some changes in their service to be qualified.
Why Kuaide Dache and Dache Xiomi were not approved?
Maybe the number of drivers or cars doesn't qualify for what the government demands. But, the exact reason is not clear at this point.
Will the government be adding new companies to the list of approved taxi hailing apps?
Government said yes.
Will other city governments in China be taking similar action to approve taxi hailing apps?
There is a high probability on this issue.
NB:Car image via Shutterstock.