INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi has detailed further safety measures incoming to its platform following a second murder of a female
passenger last month.
The20-year-old woman had been using Didi Hitch carpooling service inZhejiang, a province in the east of China, during
the day.
Another female user of the p2p service was murdered in May, after getting a late night ride back from her job as an air
stewardess.The unverified driver had apparently been using an account belonging to his father (who had been verified by Didi).
The new
safety features, which include a button to call the police, are set to be phased in over the coming days.
Didi says it will temporarily
suspend late-nightTaxi, Express, Uber China, Didi Select, Didi Express Pool, Premier and Luxe services each day, between 23:00 until 5:00
— from September 8 to 15 — on the Chinese mainland while it does this
So it temporarily shutting down a large swathe of its mainland China services overnight for a week on safety grounds.
During this time, it
says its Bike, Designated Driving, Bus, overseas Car Rental and used-car services will remain operational, and it urges users to plan their
travel accordingly.
After the first murder Didi made some changes to how the Hitch service operates, temporarily suspending late night rides
before resuming them in June— but only allowing drivers to pick up passengers of the same sex.
The second murder in August triggered a
nationwide service suspension, and a spokeswoman confirmed to TechCrunch today that the Hitch service remains indefinitely suspended (&until
there is a safety protection mechanism that is accepted by our users&).
In the wake of the murders, Didi handling of passenger safety has
come in for acute criticism.
In the second case, it emerged that the driver had been flagged to Didi safety team by another female passenger
the day before the murder — yet the customer service representative had failed to follow the new companypolicy of initiating an
investigation within two hours — a policy that had been instigated after the earlier murder in May.
Didi fired the general manager for the
Hitch service and its vice president of customer services
But it also managed to sound horribly tone-deaf in its response last month when it shoehorned ride completion numbers into its apology
statement as if any metric could justify its failure to ensure passenger safety.
While Hitch remains suspended the company offers a plethora
of other ride-hailing services and the measures announced today look intended to reduce the risk for users across its service more
broadly.
Among the new safety measures it announced is a change to the operation of an SOS button — which it only launched in July
Instead of the one-click button alerting a user chosen emergency contacts it will directly dial the police in future.
Didi says it will also
be added a Safety Center to its passenger app to offer quick access to various safety features, including thenew &call police& button, as
well as itinerary sharing.
It also plans to run a nationwide awareness campaign to ensure users know about the new features and are
encouraged to set up contacts for itinerary sharing.
Additionally, the company says it will start trialing an on-route audio recording
function on its Express and Premier services
&This will help to protect drivers and passengers while ensuring the recordings are encrypted and stored according to rigorous data
protection protocol,& it writes.
Other changes to its operations are an upgrade to itsdriver safety education program — with the company
saying drivers must complete a safety knowledge test every day before they start service.
Didi also says it will step up its driver
background checks and daily use of facial recognition tech as part of its inspection checks to pick updriver-vehicle mismatch, which was
launched in May (after the system had failed to picked up the driver who was using his father account).
The company adds that it
willcontinue to cooperate with the police to &crack down on criminal offenses at all costs&, adding: &We will adopt a zero-tolerance policy
against lawless behavior.
It also flags additional investments in customer service — saying it will beef up its in-house team to 8,000
staff by the end of the year up from 5,000 currently, although it has also leaned on 10,000 subcontracted customers service reps — so is
evidently seeking to bring more of that operation in-house (presumably to shrink the risk of any similarly fatal complaint handling errors
in future).
Didi will make all-out efforts to build an extensive societal partnership to ensure our core safety standards and protect the
interests and rights of our law-abiding driver-partners in accordance with the authorities& expectations,& it writes
&We will share progress and reviews of the rectification period with the public.
Last month, after the second Didi murder, the Chinese
government announced incoming reforms of the transportation industry to improve passenger safety
So the threat of tighter regulation is looming.
