Complaints have piled up in recent weeks about Didi Chuxing, the country's largest ride-hailing app, as passengers have found it more and more difficult to secure a ride without paying higher fares.
The problem's cause is a shortage of drivers because many Didi wheelmen have returned home for China's Lunar New Year, just as demand for rides is picking up because of the holidays, Luo Wen, Didi's senior product director, wrote in a post on China's leading question-and-answer website Zhihu on Saturday.
Data monitored by Didi showed that its transport capacity from January 10 to Friday fell 25 percent compared with the previous 10-day period. "Meanwhile, demand increased 30 percent," Luo said.
China's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, sometimes called the world's largest human migration, officially began on January 13. According to government estimates, Chinese migrants are expected to make 2.98 billion trips during the holidays as they return home for their annual family reunions.
Didi's transport capacity had already come under pressure before the holidays as major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing tightened regulations on ride-hailing drivers. The regulations required ride-hailing drivers to possess local household registrations and license plates, effectively locking many drivers out of the job.
Following the release of the new rules, Didi reportedly scaled back subsidies and increased its fares.
A Beijing resident surnamed Liu complained that she was disappointed with Didi because it had become more difficult and more expensive to hail a ride.
"I now have to pay almost 40 yuan ($5.82) to get home from work using Didi's service, almost double the cost before," she told the Global Times on Sunday.
Regarding the fare complaints, Didi said it is constantly monitoring its pricing algorithm and has a cap on prices to protect its users, the company told the Global Times in an statement on Wednesday.
Didi is "working to gradually introduce adaptive measures to comply with varying local regulations, as well as updating and assisting driver-partners as new information comes along," Didi said in a statement.
