Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Alleviate the problem of excess transport capacity

Author / IT Times reporter Pan Shaoying

Editor / Wang Xin and Sun Yan

Near midnight, the lights beside the road illuminate every meter of road under the wheels. The road of "Modu" always appears spacious at this time. Master Lin, a ride-hailing driver, can't help but accelerate. His Tesla is carrying a passenger. This is the long order that makes him feel the most "suitable" to drive during this period of time. "there is no traffic jam at night, and the distance is nearly 30 kilometers. It is a 'rare' big order." Master Lin's words revealed both excitement and helplessness.

"there are more people and fewer cars, but fewer orders." since this spring, the ride-hailing industry has been "hot and cold." what is "hot" is that more and more people choose the ride-hailing business, driving the car-rental industry, while the "cold" is the influx of a large number of ride-hailing companies, resulting in a situation of "more people than supply". The empty car time is longer, the long order is less, the average passenger price is lower, and the overall income has declined.

In July, the Shanghai Road Transport Administration issued a notice on suspending the business related to the online booking of taxi transport licenses, saying that it had decided to suspend the business related to the online booking of taxi transport licenses.

Shanghai is not the first city to press the new "stop button" for ride-hailing. In the first half of this year, several cities issued "stop orders" one after another. From May 5 this year, Sanya suspended the business of accepting online ride-hailing business permits and the issuance of transport licenses; from May 16, Changsha suspended the new business of accepting online ride-hailing transport permits; and from August 4, Jiangsu Huai'an suspended the acceptance of online taxi business permits and road transport license issuance.

When new drivers and new cars no longer pour into the ride-hailing market of a certain place, will the balance of supply and demand gradually return to balance? The ride-hailing market, which seems to have entered a period of steady development, will enter a new era of stock competition?

1. The unit price has dropped, and the long list has reduced "if you lose your job, you can drive a ride-hailing at the worst." I don't know since when, being a ride-hailing driver has become one of the ways to "make a living." If you rent a car, you can be a ride-hailing driver and earn money.

It seems that the threshold is not high for ride-hailing drivers, with the influx of a large number of drivers, but also sounded the "alarm" of the industry.

Take Huai'an City, which recently stopped issuing licenses, as an example, the data show that at present, the average daily number of online car-hailing bikes in Huaian urban area is about 13, the average daily operating income of bicycles is 230 yuan, and the transport capacity of online car-hailing tends to be saturated.

In 2018, because he was optimistic about the momentum and income of ride-hailing, Master Zhu resigned from a large foreign-funded company and drove it full-time. "I've been driving a ride since 2015, when I was part-time, but my part-time income is higher than my company's income." Master Zhu told the IT Times that after working full-time, his income from driving a ride-hailing car did not make him regret his resignation. "one month's income is equal to the previous three or four months' salary."

After a few years of driving, Master Zhu slowly found some ways. He likes to take appointment orders and long-distance orders out of the province. "the time of appointment orders is often in the middle of the night or in the early hours of the morning. I will often see the dawn in Shanghai. Although people are tired, the road is good." Master Zhu drives oil cars, and in the era of rising oil prices, the monthly cost of refueling is a lot of expenses, especially in summer. Therefore, Master Zhu does not like to take orders in the morning and evening rush hour.

From 10:00 to 17:00 every day, when other ride-hailing drivers are walking around on the road, Master Zhu has completed his early morning appointment and went home to have a rest. "the Maomao list within 6 kilometers basically makes no money, and you have to turn on the air conditioner, so you might as well have a rest and save some cost." Master Zhu said that the long-distance list out of the province is also his favorite. He basically goes to Shanghai once a week. He calculates that even if the empty car returns, he still earns money.

After working in the ride-hailing industry for eight years, Master Zhu has experienced a "golden period" and is also facing a "trough". "my monthly income is about 10,000 yuan, which is 1/3 of that at its peak. It is mainly because the unit price has dropped, and the long order is very few."

The income of "old drivers" like Master Zhu can remain stable, while some "novices" are not so lucky, especially during rush hours. Calculated at 10:00 to 17:00, if the order is better in seven hours, the running water will only be three or four hundred yuan, but the cost of gas is about 100 yuan.

At the side of Master Zhu, there have been many thoughts of changing careers with the same action, or have left the ride-hailing industry.

2. More than 10 kilometers, even with the continuous addition of new drivers, the number of orders accepted by ride-hailing drivers in Shanghai has also declined in the market environment with increasingly saturated transport capacity. "the income of driving a ride-hailing takes time to boil out." This is the intuitive and white feeling of most ride-hailing drivers.

Prior to this, Master Han, who operated the catering management platform system, closed down his business due to the impact of the epidemic and started a ride-hailing service. The morning is Master Han's rest time. At two or three o'clock in the afternoon, Master Han has to stay until eight or nine o'clock in the evening. After a short rest, he continues to drive until the wee hours of the morning. "after 22:00, buses and subways are out of service one after another, the road condition is good, and the probability of receiving a long order is higher." Master Han, who pays attention to the efficiency of driving, said.

Compared with when he first joined the industry in 2019, Master Han's biggest feeling was that he could not stop opening orders every day, almost all of them were "relay orders", and there was no pressure to take 30 orders a day, but now the frequency of dispatching orders has obviously decreased. And long orders are becoming less and less. "in the past, there were one or two orders for more than 30 kilometers, but now orders over 10 kilometers are considered high-quality orders." Master Han estimated that with an average of 20 orders a day, there are only two or three orders that can exceed 10 kilometers.

Master Guo is also a driver who has been driving a ride-hailing service for eight years. "too many cars" is the deepest feeling of him and his colleagues recently. "especially like the rush hour, when there are fewer taxi riders, it is even more difficult for drivers to take orders." Master Guo spends more than 10 hours in the car every day. Although the working hours have not changed, both the odd number and the daily flow are visible to the naked eye. "when you make about 16 orders a day, the amount of running water used to reach NT $800 to NT $900, but now it has dropped by 1/3 to NT $500 to NT $600." Master Guo analyzed.

Because of the high cost of the tanker, Zhu Shifu recently spent 280000 yuan to replace a Roewe pure electric commercial model. A model like this can be ordered at a higher end, but the masters do not pick up orders, no matter what grade they are. No matter what grade the order is, he takes it, "because there are not so many orders to do, it is better to take the order than drive empty and increase some income."

At more than 10:00 in the evening, when the car-hailing car-hailing stopped at a red light on Wuning Road in Shanghai, the driver smiled to the IT Times reporter and said, "look, at this time, Chengdu is a ride-hailing company. If you work in our line of work, you can see that what we have parked next to our car is all ride-hailing!"

3. "compliant transport capacity" will become the mainstream with the "warning whistle" of the ride-hailing industry around the country, can this really alleviate the saturation of the ride-hailing market?

Reporters interviewed a number of ride-hailing drivers learned that although there are many drivers, but the "double certificate complete" compliance drivers and vehicles do not account for a large proportion.

"suspending the processing of certificates has actually blocked the way for some ride-hailing drivers who want to be compliant, and non-compliant drivers still account for half of the country." A driver confessed.

An industry source told reporters that if you want to become a compliance driver, you may face higher barriers and greater competitive pressure. "when the ride-hailing market becomes saturated, there will be more fierce competition and price war." the relevant government departments will also strengthen the supervision of the industry. "

According to the statistics of the online ride-hailing regulatory information interaction system, in June this year, a total of 318 ride-hailing companies across the country obtained the license to operate the online ride-hailing platform, an increase of five from the previous month, and a total of 5.79 million online ride-hailing driver certificates and 243.4 vehicle transport licenses were issued in various localities, up 3.7% and 3.3% respectively.

In the view of Yin Hao, secretary general of the ride-hailing branch of the China Urban Public Transport Association, the main reasons for the saturation of the ride-hailing market are the reduction in the prices of fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles, the second is the continuous relaxation of the financing channels open to ride-hailing operators in the financial industry, and the third is that some large mainframe manufacturers put vehicles into the ride-hailing market out of sales pressure.

"suspending the processing of transport licenses is to reorganize and optimize the stock market, optimize the huge transport capacity structure, and gradually optimize the operation and expansion of the ride-hailing platform. Next, we should use policy guidance to strengthen the operation of compliance ride-hailing, and the current compliance rate still needs to be improved." Yin Hao said.

Ride-hailing platform to enjoy the road travel-related people told the IT Times, it can be foreseen that with the local ride-hailing market standardization, compliance requirements continue to improve, some non-compliant ride-hailing capacity (vehicles, drivers) may be withdrawn, the contradiction between supply and demand in the ride-hailing market will naturally achieve a state of dynamic balance and sustainable development.

"on the one hand, the development of data technology has brought more development space for the improvement of ride-hailing efficiency and the optimization of fine management, and the data-driven ride-hailing business will be more efficient; on the other hand, with the strengthening of government supervision, the construction of compliance transport capacity will really determine the supply capacity of a platform. The platform that pays attention to compliance in the ride-hailing market will also have more policy advantages and market competitiveness, and its long-term development trend will also be more robust. " The above-mentioned road travelers said.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: IT Times (ID:vittimes), by Pan Shaoying.

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