Didi, a leading car-hailing service in China. (Photo/Chinanews.com)
Officials mull odd-even scheme to limit number of cars on roads
Beijing officials have accused online car-hailing services of further congesting traffic in 2015, drawing widespread criticism for what many car owners and experts called a "groundless and crude accusation that may dampen the emerging industry."
Beijing's traffic conditions worsened in 2015 due to plunging oil prices and the car-hailing services, Zhou Zhengyu, director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, said at the fourth plenary session of the municipal People's Congress on Monday.
More than 100,000 cars are involved in online car-services, and 60,000 of them are active. Around 600,000 to 700,000 online car-hailing orders were fulfilled daily, Zhou said.
Before the car-hailing services became popular thanks to the emergence of smartphones, Beijing's taxi market was dominated by about 66,000 cabs, while private cars doing business without a taxi license had long been playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities.
The accusation has triggered widespread criticism online, while some drivers offering car-hailing services reached by the Global Times expressed their concern, worried that the accusation may lead to tighter measures on their business.
"It's unclear how the government reached such a conclusion, but blaming online car-hailing services for Beijing traffic congestion is not objective, as deteriorating traffic conditions are caused by several reasons," Fu Weigang, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, told the Global Times.
According to a traffic analysis reported by AutoNavi Holdings AMAP in August, Beijing topped the list of 10 cities in China with the worst traffic for second time in the first half of 2015, while the upsurge in online car-hailing services also affected traffic volume.
Mixed response
Car-hailing services using smartphone apps have been gaining momentum across China, but have been targeted by local authorities for "lack of supervision and safety."
"It's ridiculous for the government to accuse car-hailing services for worsening traffic conditions, as there is no solid evidence to support such an accusation," Yin hao, a Jiangsu-based car rental agent who currently has over 800 private car owners for his online taxi business, told the Global Times.
As a peer-to-peer service, online car-hailing has significantly reduced dead mileage, freeing drivers from wandering around populated areas for passengers, which has alleviated the city's traffic congestion to some degree, Yin said.
"Without online car-hailing services, people may drive private cars as well as call a taxi, which can also worsen the traffic," Yin added.
Some experts disagree, saying that online car-hailing services will definitely deteriorate Beijing's traffic conditions.
"With private cars entering online car-hailing platforms, a large number of them are more frequently used on the road, which may overburden the already bad traffic conditions," Wang Limei, vice president of the China Road Transport Association, told the Global Times.
"Most passengers use the online car-hailing services during rush hours, which will significantly add to traffic congestion," a Beijing-based expert in traffic management who requested anonymity told the Global Times.
Riding a car from car-hailing services like Uber or Didi Kuaidi can save nearly half of what a normal taxi charges for the same distance.
Odd-even scheme
Beijing officials are also discussing the possibility of instituting a number plate restriction scheme in congested districts, hoping the measure could alleviate the bad traffic conditions, according to local media reports.
Current traffic rules, based on license plate numbers, take about one-fifth of vehicles off the road each weekday.
Stricter rules, such as the odd-even number scheme that allows only half of vehicles to hit the road each day during the smog-prone winter, will also be discussed, The Mirror reported Monday.
"Curbing online car-hailing services or regulating traffic cannot fundamentally improve bad traffic conditions. People should change their concept of travel and use public transportation," Wang said.
Didi Kuaidi said it received more than 1.4 billion orders in 2015, while users' approval rate of online car-hailing services in big cities has reached 86.7 percent, Beijing Business Today reported in January.
"Chinese people rely too much on taxis as well as private cars, so the government should encourage the use of public transportation and try to make it more appealing by focusing on improving public transportation as well as offering discounts," Wang said.
