A SHENZHEN resident surnamed Jiang said she was happy Feb. 18 to get two free taxi rides between her workplace and Shenzhen Children’s Palace.

    “We took a taxi to Children’s Palace and paid the 13 yuan (US$2) fare through Alipay. On the way back, we paid through WeChat. Because the two companies are offering incentives to passengers who use their Kuaidi Dache app and Didi Dache app, we didn’t pay a single jiao of the fares,” Jiang said.

    Passengers’ and drivers’ rush to use taxi-booking apps is heating up as companies offer financial incentives to lure customers in a competitive market.

    Tencent-backed Didi Dache announced Feb. 17 that it will allocate 1 billion yuan to subsidize passengers and taxi drivers if passengers pay via the WeChat instant-messaging app. Didi increased its per-ride subsidy from 12 yuan to 20 yuan Feb. 18.

    Alibaba Group-backed Kuaidi Dache has added 200 million yuan to its subsidy plan. The company, touting a slogan of paying subsidy “forever 1 yuan more than its rival,” said it had increased its original 11-yuan subsidy plan to 13 yuan per ride for passengers who pay through Alipay, the country’s largest third-party online payment platform.

    The heated rivalry has led to crashes of both companies’ online payment systems as numerous passengers try to pay fares through Alipay and WeChat.

    “I had four orders last Tuesday morning, but two of them couldn’t be honored because the system crashed,” said a driver surnamed He, who works for a taxi company in Nanshan District.

    The new taxi-booking services are leaving some potential passengers out in the cold.

    A netizen surnamed Lin said he became frustrated after he was rejected by a cab driver at Shenzhen Book City CBD Store in Futian District, because the cab already had been booked by a passenger using a taxi app.

    “I waited for more than 10 minutes before a taxi pulled over, but then the driver rejected me. If you don’t have a taxi app, you can’t get a ride,” Lin wrote online.

    While the use of taxi apps reportedly has reduced cabs’ vacancy rates and passengers’ wait times, it’s also creating new challenges for the industry.

    Drivers have said that 99 percent of passengers who use taxi apps are in their 20s or 30s. A local taxi driver surnamed Long, for example, said he had received 930 orders through apps since he began using them last year. Only two of those passengers were older than 50, he said.

    “When we have reservations made by app users, we have to reject people trying to hail cabs on the street,” Long said.

    A Shenzhen resident surnamed Yu said the apps create unfair disadvantages for elderly people who don’t know how to use Alipay, WeChat or GPS.

    “I once waited for two cabs at Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital, but the drivers didn’t pick me up and instead drove some young people,” Yu said.

    Some residents have said it’s risky for drivers to operate mobile phones to take reservations on apps while driving. Some taxi drivers even have two phones, one using each app, in order to take reservations as quickly as possible. A resident surnamed Chen said using apps behind the wheel should be banned, the same way it’s illegal to talk on a mobile phone while driving.

    Some residents have suggested that authorities implement measures such as setting up designated taxi stops so passengers will form a habit of waiting in line for taxis, or restricting some taxis from using apps to help people trying to flag rides on the street.

    Zhang Xin, a manager of Shenzhen Yixingwang Science and Technology Co., which jointly developed taxi app software called “Transport in Hand” with the Shenzhen Transportation Commission, said the city should enhance phone services at its taxi call center to help people who don’t know how to use taxi apps.

    (Han Ximin)