Ride-hailing drivers’ real life in China
As a local company in China, Didi Chuxing has developed into a large international company in just a few years and is active in various countries. DiDi Global’s main competitors include Uber, Ola, Grab and BetterManager. Last September, Chinese authorities summoned 11 ride-hailing companies — including T3 Chuxing, Meituan Dache, Caocao Chuxing, and Didi — to order them to control their “vicious competition”.
Behind the prosperity of capital, how is one’s life as an ordinary online car-hailing driver？
the ordinary life of an online car-hailing driver
XiaoLiu, a 24-year-old car-hailing driver, works full-time on the online car-hailing platform. He quit his job as a chef in a local restaurant to start car-hailing full-time after a spat with his former employer. In the past, he worked as a cook from 10:00 to 15:00 and from 17:00 to 22:00 during the day, but now he starts working at 7:00 every day and doesn’t drive home until 10:00 in the evening.
From morning to night, according to the guidance of the online car-hailing algorithm, he ran to each customer’s location to pick up and then delivered him to the destination safely. In the city of Hangzhou, Xiao Liu’s daily turnover is about 500 RMB. However, Xiao Liu’s service car (AION Y) is rented, which means that the rental cost is about 100 RMB per day.
In China, gasoline is more expensive, and diesel passenger cars are not allowed, so commercial vehicles are usually electric vehicles. Another reason can be, that license applications for fuel vehicles are restricted in metropoles, such as Shanghai, Peking, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, etc. To get a license for personal fuel vehicles means a huge cost which may be more expensive than the car price. In Shanghai, License plates can be auctioned off for nearly 200,000 RMB.
Xiao Liu is single, solo lives in Hangzhou. He rents a room for 2000 RMB per month, and an AION Y for 3000 RMB. I am not sure if he’d like to “rent” a girlfriend at night. Sorry for the bad joke.
He said he regrets that he left school too early. “ I’m fucking out of middle school, I don’t know a lot of things, I’m stupid, all I know is to drive people around on wheels“ annoyed but calmly he said.
“Ok, how about starting another job, leave your now junk cheap E-car, “ I tentatively asked. “I don’t have any other money-earning skills. In the past, I only cut vegetables, potatoes, tomatoes, I could cut them very quickly and neatly. I don’t like to talk with passengers but you. I am happy to talk with you to share my experience. But in the current society, it is difficult to have a good opportunity without a degree. I also want to work in an office building like you.” XiaoLiu frustrated answered.
During our 3 km trip, the driver ran a red light without paying attention and drove the wrong way once. “That’s wired I’ve never made such mistakes in one night,” XiaoLiu complained. After about 15 minutes, we arrived. “ Our trip is over. I’m glad to meet you” That’s said both by XiaoLiu and me. “You look really tired, why not go home or stop for a rest?” “Thanks for the advice but I have to keep driving, see you next time. Good night!”
Every day, there are hundred thousand of cars driving by us in our cities. Among these, Many drivers are full-time ride-hailing drivers from different platforms.
According to data released by the China Ministry of Transport, in the first quarter of 2023, the number of online car-hailing orders nationwide has been on the rise, with month-on-month increases of 14.1%, 13.30%, and 9.70% in the first three months; the order volume of the online car-hailing industry in March 716 million orders, a year-on-year increase of 32.8%.
The most car-hailing drivers are young people who lack professional skills and don’t have much money to open their own businesses.
The sad thing is that although the industry has attracted a lot of capital, the working conditions of the bottom practitioners have not improved, but have deteriorated. In the past, drivers were relatively free to work, but now they are supervised by APP and have to guarantee a lot of working hours every day. Why they are controlled by car-hailing APPs? How it works?
Algorithm
To put it simply, the platform assigns the order to push the order closest to the driver according to the location of the driver and guarantees that it will be pushed to only one driver within the specified time.
It works for the early period of a new platform when it doesn’t have many users (both drivers and passengers).
As time goes by, more and more new drivers enter the platform, and more and more drivers meet the conditions near the same order. However, the total amount of social resources remains unchanged or grows slightly, that is, the total number of people who need to take car-hailing has not increased much. Drivers thus need to compete for the same order. For its own fairness, the platform began to use algorithms to evaluate each driver’s score, whether it is the best match for the order.
Driver A gets up early and works late every day, drives for 12 hours without taking a break, and has no complaints; driver B drives for two hours in the morning, and goes to rest when it is too hot at noon. When night comes, he comes out to drive again, and the platform will judge him It is a part-time job, and the work attitude is not serious, and the enthusiasm for driving is not high. Therefore, the order is given priority to professional driver A.
Therefore, in order to get a good impression of the platform, newly enrolled drivers will maintain a good attendance rate and working hours. That’s why the drivers need to do longtime work even if they feel really tired or bored.
Conclusion
Many jobs are being replaced by machines or AI. While we enjoy modern life with high convenience, our working methods are constantly being updated and iterated, and this change is also quietly affecting our way of life. It’s worth thinking about for each of us.
Every time we take an online car-hailing, remember to thank our drivers’ service.
