Car-hailing key part of public transport

This year's travel rush during Spring Festival, or chunyun, reached its peak days before the Chinese New Year, with passengers finding it particularly hard to hail a taxi or ride-sharing car. In most cases one had to pay drivers extra money to be picked up by ride-sharing cars; and even these offers were at times unanswered, fueling concerns that drivers were "spoiled" by Didi Chuxing, the most popular mobile transportation services platform, and its rivals and now they only take passengers offering generous bonuses.

In response to the mounting complaints by passengers who could not get a car-hailing ride without doubling even tripling the fare, Didi announced before the Lunar Year that it will "temporarily and progressively" ban its registered drivers from collecting the "dispatching fee" as a bonus. Passengers are still free to offer drivers tips.

Ostensibly the hard-to-get cabs are a result of insufficient supply especially while the demand is rising. A number of cities including Beijing and Shanghai enacted rules recently requiring drivers hired by car-hailing platforms to have a local household registration and local license plates for their cars.