Martin Li, Xiao Yuxuan

    martin.mouse@163.com

    LOCAL passengers said the pickup services provided by car-booking apps are convenient and comfortable, but expensive.

    Taxi-hailing apps including Kuaidi Dache, Didi Dache, as well as foreign ridesharing service Uber, have launched operations in Shenzhen, allowing passengers to choose from an array of cars that will come to a designated place at an arranged time.

    The minimum starting price is 19 yuan (US$3.09) for Didi Dache’s pickup service, 15 yuan for Kuaidi Dache’s and 8 yuan for Uber’s. The cost per kilometer for these companies ranges from 1.6 yuan to 5.3 yuan, compared to 2.4 yuan for regular taxis, for which the starting price is 10 yuan.

    In other words, Uber is cheaper than taking a taxi, but the clincher is that it requires a credit card to use. This is a game changer for many people who would be customers.

    “I used the pickup service provided by Didi Dache to go to the city’s airport, which was very comfortable and convenient. However, it is costly,” a man surnamed Deng told Shenzhen Daily yesterday.

    Didi Dache provides ordinary and luxury sedans as well as SUVs.

    A bank employee, surnamed Li, said he had booked the service several times before getting off work in order to attend parties and dinners in a timely fashion.

    “Even when there is a traffic jam, having a car pick me up makes me feel comfortable, but I also feel pain because the traffic jam means I need to pay more,” Li joked.

    A woman, Zheng, said she chooses to use the pickup services in hurried situations.

    According to research done for this article, taking a Didi Dache car from Shekou in Nanshan District to central Futian District costs about 90 yuan, while it would cost less to use a regular taxi.

    “The passengers for our pickup service are mainly young people, especially those working in central urban areas where office buildings are clustered. There are more women than men booking the service,” Ren Chunmei, a driver of Didi Dache’s pickup service, told Shenzhen Daily yesterday.

    “I pick up at least 12 passengers on average on each workday. The business thrives during rush hour on workdays,” said Ren, who has been driving for almost 20 years.

    Ren said many drivers prefer to work for pickup service companies rather than taxi companies because the taxi market is “chaotic.”

    Another pickup service driver, Wang Changzheng, agreed with Ren, saying that many taxi drivers often refuse to take passengers who ask to go to nearby destinations via taxi-hailing apps.

    “I’m quite busy on workdays and often don’t have enough time to eat. In contrast, there are fewer passengers on weekends,” said Wang.

    “If I receive enough positive comments from passengers, I will be awarded 1,000 yuan by my company each month,” said Wang.

    Wang said such incentives encourage him to constantly improve his service.

    Despite drivers’ optimism about the new services in town, at least five people interviewed by Shenzhen Daily in central Futian said yesterday that they had only heard of the services, but would not consider using them because of the high costs.

    Three other residents interviewed said that they had not even heard of the pickup services.