Four Fallacies in the Discussion of the New Deal for Online Car-hailing in Various Regions

　　Write on the front:

　　The new policy of online car-hailing in various places is reasonable as long as it does not deviate from the top-level design of the State Council’s "Guiding Opinions on Deepening Reform and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Taxi Industry".

　　In the final analysis, this is itself a "local difference". There are differences between first-tier cities and second-tier cities, second-tier cities and third- and fourth-tier cities, and there are also differences between urban and rural areas. This is the basic national situation.

　　Beijing, Shanghai and other megacities have strict control over the number and personnel of online car-hailing, while Chengdu and Hangzhou have relatively loose control over the number and personnel of online car-hailing, which are determined according to the characteristics of their own cities.

　　Just as Chengdu and Beijing cannot be required to implement the exact same minimum living standards, Beijing should not be blamed for implementing the same ride-hailing access conditions as Chengdu.

　　From October 8th, cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing and other municipalities directly under the Central Government, Shenzhen, Shantou and other special zones, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and other provincial capital cities, as well as Ningbo and other larger cities approved by the State Council, have successively issued local rules for the new online car-hailing policy to solicit public opinion.

　　As of now, the comment period for some cities has expired, the exposure draft of some cities has just been released, and the exposure draft of some cities has not yet been released.

　　It is worth noting that, according to the provisions of the Legislative Law, cities that have or are issuing exposure drafts basically have the local legislative authority of local regulations or rules.

　　It is precisely because of this that the administrative rules for "online car-hailing" formulated by various places in combination with local realities have become the focus of disputes or comments. So, what absurd views are there in these discussions or debates?

　　Myth 1: The new rules of local online car-hailing violate the provisions of the higher law

　　The argument focuses on whether some cities have "resident population" restrictions or requirements for driver access.

　　Many people believe that local restrictions or requirements on local ride-hailing drivers to "permanent population or household registration in this city" violate the provisions of the upper law.

　　First of all, the industry-level laws for formulating local online car-hailing new rules are mainly based on the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Deepening Reform and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Taxi Industry" and the "Interim Measures for the Management of Online Booking Taxi Business Services" jointly formulated by the Ministry of Transport and other seven ministries.

　　Secondly, since the subsequent new policies on online car-hailing in various places may be issued in the name of local regulations or rules, their legislative basis is correspondingly related to the Legislative Law.

　　Finally, due to the fact that many cities already have local regulations or rules on the management of the taxi industry, combined with the needs of the taxi industry reform, taxis are divided into two operating models: cruise and online reservation. It is necessary to compare, refer to, or simultaneously revise local taxi management regulations or measures to ensure that the two taxi operating models achieve equal access and operational differentiation.

　　Therefore, evaluating whether the new policy of online car-hailing violates the higher law requires a comprehensive perspective.

　　For example, regarding the requirements for the "local permanent population" of online taxi drivers, on the one hand, many cities have the same requirements for taxi drivers before, and it is not inappropriate to put forward similar requirements as a form of taxi service; on the other hand, from the perspective of taxi passenger transportation services, drivers who belong to the "local permanent population" are more familiar with road conditions and traffic management measures in various places, and can better provide passengers with travel and transportation services.

　　Many people may say that online ride-hailing drivers can overcome the problem of "unfamiliar road conditions" with the help of "navigation software".

　　In fact, from the past period of time, the operation and passenger experience of taxi-hailing platforms such as Didi, Yidao, and Shenzhou have shown that many non-resident drivers, even with the help of navigation software, have a lot of unreasonable route choices, and the experience is indeed not good.

　　Therefore, from ensuring that legal online car-hailing provides local passengers with faster and more efficient travel services, it is not inappropriate for some cities to set the needs of "permanent residents".

　　More importantly, many cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, currently have management requirements for population size control. For online car-hailing services that are not part of the local development, the need for "permanent population" for drivers can also help control the trend of population flow.

　　Myth 2: The implementation of the new local online car-hailing policy will make the "black car" in various places return

　　This is the bus station near the Lishuiqiao Station of the subway. During non-commuting peak hours, a "long dragon" has begun to line up on the right side of the bus stop sign. When these cars have a single connection, they are Didi Express and special cars, and when there is no single connection, they are traditional "black cars". It is worth mentioning that while Didi and other platforms are developing rapidly, this "long dragon" is also getting longer and longer, and there is almost a half-stop distance from the back of the car to the front of the car, which makes the congestion on this section of the road increasing frequently.

　　In response to the details of the new policy of online car-hailing in various places, in view of the management requirements of "X nationality and X brand" proposed by some cities, many people are worried that this move will lead to the return of "black cars".

　　First of all, it needs to be emphasized that even in the peak subsidy stage of ride-hailing software such as Didi, the number or scale of "black cars" in cities such as Beijing has not decreased, but has shown an increasing trend.

　　To put it simply, when Didi and other ride-hailing software went crazy with subsidies, it not only attracted the original local "black car" access platform, but also produced a "black hole effect" on private cars in surrounding cities similar to Beijing, Shanghai and other megacities, causing more and more vehicles with non-local license plates to flood into the city, connect to Didi and other platforms, and provide online booking and ride-hailing services.

　　Before the new regulations were implemented, all kinds of special cars and express cars on Didi and other taxi-hailing platforms were themselves illegal operating vehicles, also known as "black cars" by the public.

　　Secondly, even in accordance with the State Council’s guidance on deepening taxi reform, the positioning of taxis is "an integral part of the urban comprehensive transportation system and a supplement to urban public transportation." It is necessary to "appropriately develop taxis according to the city’s own characteristics, transportation needs, road resource carrying capacity, environmental protection and other factors."

　　As a subset or component of taxis, online taxi booking itself should not jump out of the box of "supplementary status" and "moderate development" in urban transportation.

　　Therefore, regardless of how localities determine the details of the new policy on online car-hailing, "moderate development" and "components" are "red lines" that should not be broken through. As for how to grasp the "degree" of "moderate development" in various localities, it should be determined by each city according to its own characteristics.

　　But no matter how it is determined, all kinds of vehicles and drivers currently connected to platforms such as Didi have a process of "destocking", and the number of legal identities that will eventually be "turned positive" must be limited or small.

　　Therefore, from this general perspective, as long as there is no illegal situation in the details of the new policy of online car-hailing in various places, whether to take the "market adjustment" method for vehicles and drivers to indirectly control the quantity through supply and demand, or to control the quantity through the "X brand" method, can be decided by each city.

　　Myth 3: The details of the new online car-hailing policy will have the problems of "difficult to take a taxi" and "expensive to take a taxi"

　　"It’s not difficult to take a taxi", there is no unified identification standard, except for the driver’s "picking jobs" problem, it is itself a problem of individual perception differences and differentiation.

　　In addition, the reason why the so-called "difficult taxi" problem has arisen before is ultimately related to: information asymmetry, excessive instantaneous demand and the limitations of the way of cruising and picking up passengers.

　　In fact, since the advent of online booking and hailing, the problem of "difficulty in hailing a taxi" has become less prominent.

　　In accordance with the top-level design of the State Council’s guidance on deepening taxi reform, a certain number of regular online car-hailing services will be increased in various places.

　　Therefore, with the help of taxi parades and online booking classification operations, and with the help of online booking and hailing methods, the problem of "difficult taxi hailing" can be well alleviated.

　　Of course, even during the peak period of subsidies such as Didi, it is still difficult to take a taxi when encountering bad weather such as heavy rain. This also shows that "it is difficult to take a taxi" is not only a matter of individual perception differentiation, but also a problem of instantaneous supply and demand balance.

　　As for the "taxi is expensive" issue, it is even more a false proposition.

　　On the one hand, even before the introduction of the new rules for online car-hailing, the ride-hailing platforms such as Didi, Shenzhou, and Yidao had higher ride pricing themselves, and passengers felt that the cheapness was an illusion caused by subsidies at a specific stage.

　　On the other hand, the new rules for online car-hailing have been introduced, and only one platform in the online car-hailing service market will obtain legal qualifications. From the perspective of market competition, although the pricing may be higher than that of taxis, the full competition of market participants will still reduce passengers’ travel costs.

　　Therefore, whether the travel cost is expensive or not is not necessarily related to the introduction of the new rules for online car-hailing.

　　Myth 4: The more the number of online car-hailing, the more efficient the passenger travel

　　On the surface, the passenger response rate during the peak subsidy period is very high, but the efficiency of travel has not been greatly improved, because the scale of vehicles has expanded, which has only worsened the congestion in the city.

　　More importantly, according to Article 50 of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law, localities should "reasonably control the number of fuel-powered vehicles in accordance with urban planning".

　　Therefore, the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law" and local regulations on air pollution prevention and control in various places are the legislative basis for the implementation of total control of passenger cars in various places.

　　Simply put, in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities, under the premise of implementing total control over the purchase of passenger cars by local permanent population families, Didi and other taxi-hailing software, through so-called subsidies, attract private cars from surrounding cities to drive into these cities and provide online car-hailing services. In fact, it has increased the number of local motor vehicles in disguise, making the local management efforts to control the total number of passenger cars and the sacrifices of residents’ families directly "wasted."

　　It is worth mentioning that the guidelines for "carpooling and hitchhiking" in various places, which belong to the "sharing economy" in the true sense, seem to be drowned in various debates for revitalizing the transportation capacity of existing private cars in various places and stimulating more vehicles to participate in carpooling, hitchhiking and other ride-sharing promotions, which is very puzzling.

　　It seems that most people only care about the management of online ride-hailing that can generate commercial returns, while they are a little indifferent to the true sense of sharing or free travel.

　　Text/Li Junhui (WeChat official account: lijunhui0507)