Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

DIDI Chuxing,  China’s largest ride-hailing firm, has launched more than 10 new safety functions in its app’s Safety Center in recent months to ensure the safety of passengers and drivers, according to a comprehensive safety plan released Tuesday.

The new functions include Emergency Contact, ID Verification, Real-Time Location Sharing, Audio Recording, Privacy Numbers and Didi Care Plan.

The upgraded plan, based on internal reviews, will enhance safety management for both passengers and drivers in seven areas.

The company has strengthened collaboration with relevant authorities on public safety coordination, implemented dedicated safety teams across all businesses and enhanced safety training programs for employees and drivers.

The company has accelerated vehicle and driver verification and re-organization processes in accordance with relevant national and local regulations. Verification for drivers and vehicles with the support of facial recognition, customer service reviews and off-line examination methods has also been improved.

The company has also tightened driver engagement by ensuring fair dispatching and service rule enforcement.

The Hitch service still remains suspended and reviews of its service are ongoing. The social functions of Hitch have been eliminated, i.e., drivers and passengers can no longer comment on each other.

On Dec. 10, Didi rolled out a trial rule regarding drunk passengers on its Express service in Shenzhen. If a driver confirms a passenger is drunk, the driver can click the “drunk passenger” button on the Didi app to report to the platform before starting the trip. Drivers are allowed to cancel an order if they feel a passenger may threaten their safety, but they must take drunk passengers to their destinations if no potential safety problems exist.

Didi receives over 30,000 complaints about drunk passengers from drivers every day. An online survey showed 86 percent of 269,000 netizens think drivers should have the right to refuse service to drunk passengers traveling alone.

The company faced strong criticism after it emerged that its own systems had been at fault in two murders earlier this year. For the first fatality, the driver who committed the murder bypassed Didi’s driver authentication system (using an account belonging to his father) while a sexual harassment complaint lodged against the account before the incident was not followed up on.

The second murder showed further problems. The driver had been flagged by Didi’s safety team just one day before the murder after a female passenger complained that he had requested that she ride in the front seat and then followed her for some time after she got out of his vehicle. Yet, the Safety Center representative who handled the complaint had not followed the company policy of initiating an investigation within two hours.

Didi fired two executives following the second murder — the general manager for Hitch and the company’s vice president of customer services — and suspended the Hitch service for the second time this year.