Figure Number Room ©

Figure Number Room ©

follow

This article is from WeChat official account: Picture Data Room (ID: sina tushushi), the author: Picture Data Room, the head picture is from Visual China

Article Summary

Online ride hailing services are becoming increasingly smelly, and the root cause of the problem lies in the overloading of drivers and vehicles, as well as the odor caused by factors such as seats and air conditioning systems. The issue of platform commission also affects the work enthusiasm of drivers.

• •    Overloading of drivers and vehicles leads to odor issues inside ride hailing services

• •    The issue of platform commission has affected the work enthusiasm of drivers

• • ️   Factors such as seats and air conditioning system exacerbate the odor problem inside ride hailing services

Imagine you just waved to stop a ride hailing service, looking forward to a relaxed and enjoyable journey. However, at the moment you open the car door, a scent of "long history" hits your face, as if it's the lost scent of ancient dragon water in a time and space tunnel, or the breakfast bun flavor left by the previous passenger in a hurry. You can't help but furrow your brow, but the car has already moved on, and you can only silently open the window to let the fresh air experience a "scent redemption".

This journey not only tests your sense of smell, but also gives you a brand new understanding of the fresh air inside the car.

It seems to have become a recognized fact that ride hailing services are becoming increasingly smelly. What exactly is the reason? Is summer ride hailing still smelly?

Online ride hailing service, passengers cry and cry

Like the modern version of the Aladdin Magic Lamp, ride hailing services have captured the hearts of countless people with their special skill of "one click summoning". From urban white-collar workers to small town residents, no one is no longer enjoying this on-demand mode of transportation.

The user scale of ride hailing services is also increasing. From June 2021 to June 2023, the number of ride hailing users has increased by nearly 20% in the past two years. As of December 2023, the number of ride hailing users in China has reached 528 million, a year-on-year increase of 90.57 million, accounting for 48.3% of the total number of netizens. Almost half of the netizens use ride hailing services.

But if there is one advantage, there must be one disadvantage. With the increasing market for ride hailing services, related issues are gradually emerging. The most important issue among them is the driver's problem.

A ride hailing platform once voted on the "Top 10 uncivilized behaviors of ride hailing drivers", and the results showed that nearly 30% of users believed that the most common problem of uncivilized behavior among ride hailing drivers was the interior environment, with 16.2% of users ranking first. 13.7% of users reported that the ride hailing drivers had unclean or garbage inside.

The rampant odor in ride hailing services is truly unbearable, especially in the winter when doors and windows are tightly closed and air conditioning is needed for heating. Even if one's consciousness is clear in the cold wind, as soon as they enter the ride hailing service, they will immediately feel dizzy and dizzy. If they value cost-effectiveness and choose to carpool, they will also face the "danger" of various flavors interwoven with their peers, which is unbearable. They complain about "spending money to suffer".

The figure room screened and counted 1889 Weibo discussions using the keyword "stinky ride hailing services". It is found that everyone's roast about the "stink of online car hailing" are mainly reflected in the following problems: the stink inside the car makes people carsick, the taxi is like getting into the driver's bed, the frequency of hitting the stinky car is high, and the urgent need for platform access and rectification. It is worth mentioning that female ride hailing drivers have gained recognition from many netizens, and some even exclaim, "I hope to meet more female drivers in the future.".

Where does the unpleasant smell of ride hailing come from?

Why is ride hailing so smelly?

In fact, the sources of "odor" inside a car are diverse, with the most common being the odor emitted from the car interior. Plastic, rubber, leather products are widely used in seats, ceilings, instrument panels, etc. The organic solvents, additives, and other components in these materials will gradually evaporate into the air.

The "new car smell" that people often refer to largely refers to this smell, and the situation of "getting sick when smelling the smell while sitting in the car" is also caused by this. If the driver likes to dress up his car and put perfume and various accessories on the car, the smell will be more complex. Especially in winter, when the car windows are closed and the warm air blows, the smell is really strong.

Car air conditioning is also the culprit. The refrigeration of car air conditioning systems can produce water droplets in the ventilation ducts, which can mix with dust and dirt for a long time and cause mold growth. So some people say that as winter passes, the number of stinky cars will decrease, but it may be the opposite. Many ride hailing services are not willing to spend energy, time, or money cleaning the air conditioning. The common situation is that when you sweat profusely and open the car door, wanting to bathe in cool air, what greets you is a sour smell.

The higher the temperature, the more intense the movement of molecules. When exposed to sunlight in summer and when the air conditioning is turned on in winter, the temperature inside the car increases, making the smell inside the car more complex and unpleasant. A survey once found that when the temperature increased from 25 degrees to 35 degrees, the concentration of formaldehyde in the car increased by 1.5 times.

Carpooling, express, and economy are the most commonly chosen types of online ride hailing services for consumers. Most of these cars are compact cars priced around 100000 yuan, and the car itself has a relatively small space, which makes the riding experience uncomfortable and the air circulation less conducive. According to data, the standard size for car width is between 1600mm and 1800mm, while the height is generally between 1400mm and 1600mm. Taking BYD Qin as an example, its width and height just exceed the standard.

The freight rates of ride hailing services have also continued to decline in recent years, and the operating time of bicycles has been continuously extended. The director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center at North China University of Technology has conducted research and found that about 50% of drivers earn between 30 and 45 yuan per hour. If the median is calculated at 38 yuan, the income for 10 hours is 380 yuan. After deducting various related costs, this income belongs to low to medium income. To achieve relatively high income, a relatively long driving time is necessary.

Both the driver and the vehicle are operating at overload. Some ride hailing services operate in two shifts, with passengers staying on and off; Some ride hailing drivers can be said to have food, accommodation, and transportation inside the car, with a complex and unpleasant odor that can be imagined.

The charging time of electric cars is still relatively long, and many people take off their shoes and smoke a cigarette while charging, and the smell becomes apparent.

Starting from 2018, ride hailing rental companies have launched a large number of vehicles, with an annual investment of approximately 600000 units. According to industry estimates, at least 40% of the ride hailing cars currently running on the streets are old cars with a travel distance of over 200000 kilometers and over 4 years of age. After years of use, the odor has penetrated into every crevice.

Should the driver be blamed for the smell of ride hailing services?

In fact, there are clear regulations in the industry to address the issue of "stinky cars".

For example, "600000 kilometers" and "8 years" are barriers that all ride hailing services cannot avoid. As early as 2016, the Interim Measures for the Management of Online Booking Taxi Business Services stipulated that online car hailing services must be scrapped when the driving distance reaches 600000 kilometers; When the driving distance does not reach 600000 kilometers but the service life reaches 8 years, the ride hailing service will be discontinued.

In June last year, the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau issued the "Technical Standards for Online Reservation Taxi Vehicles in Hangzhou", which required new registered online ride hailing vehicles to be newly manufactured pure electric vehicles, or non new energy pure electric source vehicles with a taxable price of over 150000 yuan, and also set limits on the wheelbase and other parameters of the new vehicles to improve the passenger experience.

In this way, it can at least ensure that the conditions of the car that passengers get are not too poor, but it increases the cost of purchasing/renting a car, putting all the pressure on the driver.

As is well known, ride hailing services are becoming the preferred choice for flexible employment due to their relatively low entry barriers. However, in recent years, the growth rate of drivers has far exceeded the passenger volume, and the industry's transportation capacity and demand have become saturated.

According to the national ride hailing data released by the Ministry of Transport in recent years, as of March 2024, the registered number of ride hailing drivers reached 6.791 million. In just one year, China has added 1.562 million registered ride hailing drivers, an increase of nearly 30%, while the growth rate of passenger numbers during the same period was about 20%.

The overall online ride hailing market has been diluted, giving drivers an intuitive feeling of "fewer orders" and "declining income". In order to maintain their income, they have to extend their working hours. According to media reports, ride hailing drivers have had to run for at least twelve or three hours to reach a daily turnover of 500 yuan, which was originally easy to earn five to six hundred yuan.

To maintain the health of the industry, many cities have issued capacity saturation warnings and suspended the processing of relevant documents.

So, the ride hailing industry has formed a siege dilemma: people from outside cannot enter, and people from inside cannot leave. Drivers are not as free as the general public imagines, and entering the industry means they are burdened with two major obstacles. In addition to the car purchase/rental fees mentioned earlier, the other is the platform's commission, which means they have to pay off debts every day when they open their eyes.

Excessive platform commissions have always been criticized by the public. In April 2023, the Ministry of Transport issued the "2023 Work Plan to Promote Platform Enterprises in New Forms of Transportation to Reduce Excessive Commissions", requiring all platforms to rectify excessive commissions and ensure driver income. By the end of last year, official information stated that the average commission rate for ride hailing platforms had been reduced by 1 to 3 percentage points. Major platform companies had set the upper limit of commission rates at 18% to 30%, and since then, 30% has become the "red line" for commission rates in the industry.

However, in practical operation, the calculation formulas of various platforms are not clear, and the proportion of the draw has always been a black box. Further investigations by journalists have found that there may be "yin-yang bills" between drivers and passengers on certain platforms.

Shangkan News once mentioned a case in its report: the driver actually received a reward of 86.79 yuan. From the driver's perspective, passengers paid 116.92 yuan, with a commission of less than 30%. This bill is not a problem. The trick lies in the fact that the actual fare paid by passengers is greater than the actual amount paid by the driver. If calculated based on passengers paying 140.13 yuan for the fare, nearly 40% of the money has been withdrawn by the platform.

Industry insiders point out that the "yin-yang bill" is likely caused by the layered subcontracting of aggregation platforms. After the passenger places an order on the aggregation platform, the order is sent to the small and medium-sized platforms, which then match it with the carrier driver. In this way, each round of "middlemen" overestimated the actual draw ratio by pulling out the feathers.

To put it bluntly, the root cause of the existence of a stinky car is the helplessness of the driver being trapped inside the car.

Rolling up may not necessarily make money, but not rolling up will definitely not make money. With hardware costs rising and working hours increasing day by day, the living space of drivers is constantly being eroded. In order to make a living, they are not concerned about dignity and can only rely on cars as their home.

Summer is here, will ride hailing services smell even worse?

This article is from WeChat official account: Map Data Room (ID: sina tushushi), and the author: Map Data Room

This content is the author's independent viewpoint and does not represent the Tiger Smell position. Reproduction is not allowed without permission. For authorization matters, please contact us hezuo@huxiu.com

If you have any objections or complaints about this manuscript, please contact us tougao@huxiu.com

People who are changing and want to change the world are all on the Tiger Smell app

Related recommendations

Is it reasonable to add money to ride hailing services before turning on the air conditioning?

Pinduoduo is actually the enlightenment teacher of Didi Pushing Flower Piggy?

2020 Taxi Report (Central): Millions of ride hailing drivers trapped on the platform, are you okay

The car price is less than 150000 yuan and is not equipped with an online ride hailing service?

The ride hailing industry, no one is happy

Why aren't you happy, ride hailing driver?

The employment reservoir is almost full

Online ride hailing services are too crowded: more than 1300 people are competing for 58 orders, and one order is not dispatched within 2 hours

Didi Returns to the Card Table in the Past Half Year

Tencent and Huawei are all interested in Didi's business

Online ride hailing driver, aiming the gun at Gao De to take a taxi

Will self driving taxis replace traditional taxis?

It's time to make ride hailing more comfortable

Didi, why are all female drivers taking over?

Is there a solution to the problem of hitting the "stinky car"?

Take a taxi 120 times and uncover the little secret of big data killing

Less than 10 orders per day, online ride hailing drivers are saturated

The once ubiquitous shared cars have gone yellow in less than three years?

The essence of skyrocketing parking fees: are parking spaces also being internalized?

Public utilities in the cracks: can't subways and buses coexist?

comment

Participate in comments after logging in

0/500

Tiger Smell User Community Communication Convention

Popular comments

Smell Friend Ewut3

Smell Friend Ewut3

It's the platform's pot, there are too many deductions, passengers pay too much, drivers still can't earn money, both sides are not satisfied, the money is earned by the platform, and the last complaint has to be found by the other party

12 hours ago, Shandong

forty

Smell Friend Ewut3

The same phenomenon applies to food delivery platforms nowadays

12 hours ago, Shandong

twenty

Latest comments

Pork oil soup balls

Pork oil soup balls

Are all the top 10 rated by women? Shouldn't the first unsafe behavior be driving, chatting on WeChat, and watching videos???

58 minutes ago, Zhejiang

00

Jianghu people call me Uncle Gai

Jianghu people call me Uncle Gai

The frequency of encountering stinky cars during ride hailing in Shanghai is significantly higher than in Shenzhen, as Shenzhen cars are easy to ride and competition is certainly fierce. In Shanghai, being able to get a ride is already very good.

1 hour ago, Shanghai

00

Sniff Friend NjsB2

Sniff Friend NjsB2

A large number of existing ride hailing cars have relatively low prices, and the interior materials and materials will also be lowered. In addition, there is no emphasis on hygiene. When the car door of the ride hailing car is opened, a similar odor immediately hits the face, extremely overwhelming.

2 hours ago, Zhejiang

00

Li xxx546

Li xxx546

This comment is temporarily unavailable for display

16 hours ago

Hua WeileaQ

What keywords did this trigger again? What does it have to do with this article? Did taking a taxi cause deformities and squeezing? Otherwise, walking on one's own legs would prevent deformities and oppression

15 hours ago, Guangdong

ten

SodaBiscuit

SodaBiscuit

I really haven't hit a stinky car with Gaode before

18 hours ago, Hubei

00

Fany needs to swim faster

Fany needs to swim faster

Brother, what you said makes a lot of sense. I also agree with it.. It's just you, a common ride hailing service.. How could the last one be a seal.. This car. The probability of taking ride hailing services online is also too low. The sales are already poor.. We can't sell thousands of units in a month. Most of them are hybrid DMIs, which are not of this size. There are too few pure electric seals to buy.. How can it still be a common ride hailing service.

19 hours ago, Fujian

one

打车越来越臭，平台和司机谁的锅？