After Didi’s ＂cutting peaks and filling valleys＂ price adjustment, consumers reported that the efficiency of ride-hailing has not improved
Our reporter, Chen Xueling
It is difficult for citizens to worry about hailing a taxi during peak periods. On July 11, Didi’s online taxi-hailing price adjustment plan was officially implemented. After the price adjustment, the price of morning and evening peak and night taxi-hailing rose, and the price of taxi-hailing during peak periods fell slightly. So far, the starting price of Didi Express has officially crossed the threshold of 13 yuan for taxis, starting at 14 yuan in many periods. The overall price advantage compared with tax***** is getting smaller and smaller, and even higher than taxi prices in many cases.
When Didi announced the price adjustment, it said that it hoped to ease the contradiction between supply and demand through price means "cutting peaks and filling valleys". However, many consumers reported that they did not feel the improvement of ride-hailing efficiency during peak periods. Since Didi’s price adjustment has been less than a week, many people have not noticed the price change of online car-hailing. It remains to be seen whether this adjustment can ease the difficulty of hailing a taxi.
Pricing rules are complicated, and passengers are stunned.
On July 9, Didi Chuxing officially released the price adjustment instructions for online car-hailing. Taking working days as an example, Didi divides the whole day into four time periods. Except for the peak period from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, the starting price of other time periods has increased from 13 yuan to 14 yuan, and the mileage fee and duration fee have also changed. Overall, prices rose during morning and evening peaks and night hours, and fell slightly during peak periods.
At 2 p.m. on Saturday, Ms. Fang, a citizen, took the Didi Express from near Qingnian Road to the company’s dormitory about 9 kilometers away. The fare was 41 yuan, while the estimated price of taxis for the same period was around 35 yuan. Where is the express train expensive? According to Ms. Fang’s repeated inquiry in the app, according to the new pricing rules, the time fee between 12:00 noon and 3:00 pm on rest days is more expensive, at 0.8 yuan, while the minimum price for other periods is only 0.5 yuan.
"The rules after the price adjustment are too complicated, and it is difficult for ordinary people to understand." Ms. Fang complained. The reporter compared the working day pricing rules and found that the express train was originally only priced in time periods, with a starting price of 13 yuan and a mileage fee of 1.6 yuan. After the price adjustment, the mileage fee, time fee and starting price of the four time periods were adjusted, which is more complicated. Therefore, most of the surveyed consumers did not notice the new pricing policy and only checked in the app when the price was too high.
Is there a price advantage over taxis during the morning and evening rush hours on weekdays?
At present, the taxi fare in Beijing area is 13 yuan within 3 kilometers, and 2.3 yuan per kilometer after that. If you encounter traffic jams and the speed is less than 12 kilometers per hour, an additional 2 kilometers will be charged every 5 minutes during morning and evening peaks. At the same time, taxis will be charged a fuel surcharge of 1 yuan per order.
Taking the 5-kilometer distance during the morning rush hour in the sixth district of the city as an example, if you drive for 16 minutes and get stuck in traffic for 10 minutes, the price of a taxi is about 27.8 yuan, and the price of an express train is about 22.4 yuan. It can be seen that after the price adjustment, in case of serious traffic jams, the price of a car on Didi during peak hours still has an advantage over that of a taxi.
Online car-hailing completely bid farewell to cheap labels
While the city launched new pricing rules, Didi also implemented separate pricing rules for the Capital Airport area.
For regular hours other than 9pm-6am, the starting price is Rmb26, including the distance of 8km and the duration of 14 minutes. The mileage fee for the excess part ranges from Rmb1.6 to Rmb2.2 per kilometre, and the duration fee ranges from Rmb0.4 to Rmb0.8. A further Rmb0.5 per kilometre will be charged for the distance beyond 15km, and the distance fee for the distance of 40km will increase to Rmb1.4. This fare has little obvious advantage over taxis, and in many cases is even more expensive than taxis.
"In the past, the relative cheapness of airport taxis was an important reason why people used online taxis. This price adjustment means that online taxis have completely torn off the cheap label," said Liu Yuanyuan, a white-collar worker who travels frequently to the airport.
The price increases during peak periods, individual regions are priced separately, and the pricing rules are adjusted as soon as they say, which has led many consumers to accuse Didi of being "unkind", and some people say they want to transfer to taxis or public transportation. "Although the price of online car-hailing is set by the platform, should consumers be consulted before the price adjustment, and a publicity link should be added?" Consumer Mr. Gao believes that the price adjustment is very sudden. "If it wasn’t for a friend’s reminder, I wouldn’t have seen a significant prompt in the app at all."
Whether the contradiction between supply and demand can be alleviated remains to be seen
In fact, since April 2017, the Beijing Didi Express business has introduced a time-sharing pricing model and a new pricing standard, with the starting price rising from 10 yuan to 13 yuan in order to cope with the tidal demand for cars. However, Didi said that the previous price has been implemented for more than two years, and the overall success rate of passengers in calling a car is low. There are still 20% of the demand for calling a car during the morning peak of Didi Express on working days without sufficient capacity to undertake.
"The platform tries its best to balance the supply and demand relationship through subsidies, time-sharing pricing, heat map guidance and other measures, but the imbalance between supply and demand is still very serious, especially during the morning and evening peak periods." According to Didi, after the price adjustment, the success rate of ride-hailing on the 11th has been significantly improved, but whether the price adjustment can play a role in balancing supply and demand will take longer to comprehensively analyze.