Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

DIDI Chuxing (DiDi) yesterday announced that it will restart its Hitch service via trial operations in seven cities Nov. 20, a year after the company suspended the service following two murders of female passengers.

Those cities include Harbin, Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang, Changzhou, Shenyang, Beijing and Nantong.

In May 2018, a young flight attendant was found dead after hailing a Hitch ride in the central city of Zhengzhou, and in August of that year, a driver raped and killed a passenger in the eastern city of Wenzhou.

The trial will start with trips under 50 kilometers in metro areas between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. for female users, and

5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. for male users. Information service fees will be waived during the trial operation.

DiDi Hitch was rolled out in 2015 as a commuter ride-sharing service. Since then it has also become an important inter-city mobility solution as the country’s sustained urbanization process continues to drive regional integration and mass migration.

During the 2018 Chinese New Year, nearly 30.7 million people chose Hitch as their means of transportation to return to hometowns and reunite with their families.

The relaunch follows comprehensive safety reviews and product revamps that began in 2018. The redesigned service now features improved safety features, more rigorous driver/passenger verification and rating mechanisms.

DiDi is also piloting a women’s safety program on its Hitch, which is expected to roll out to other services. Key features include enhanced risk analysis, alert and intervention models that identify high-risk scenarios and trip anomalies, effective intervention and a new in-app Safety Assistant that shows more detailed information on drivers and passengers and offers real-time support from safety specialists.