Thoughts on the Didi incident: How to provide safer taxi services?

On the evening of April 28, less than a month after Fengmi founder Zhang Heng was beaten by a Didi driver, an even more serious incident came into the public eye: the murder of a flight attendant. The case will come to an end with the suspect's drowning on May 12, but incidents of this type will never come to an end.

There have been many reports on the entire incident online, so the author will not go into details here. The simple summary is: the flight attendant was killed after using the Didi travel app to take a taxi. In fact, although there are not many cases of murder, incidents such as harassment are not uncommon in the online car-hailing industry.

There is a generally applicable principle:

Behind one accident there are often hundreds of high-risk behaviors and even more irregular operations.

Therefore, although this incident may gradually fade out of people's sight in the near future, the problems revealed by it should receive widespread attention. The author will think about how to make taxi-hailing apps safer from the perspective of product design.

1. Overview of Didi Chuxing’s functions

The three screenshots above include most of Didi Chuxing’s functions:

• From the first screenshot, we can see that Didi Chuxing’s functions are very comprehensive, covering almost all types of vehicles. From taxis to private cars to luxury cars, the full range of products meets the needs of users at different levels. For users who need a car or cannot drive, we have also launched car-sharing and designated driver functions.
• The second picture is Didi Chuxing’s function menu, some of the functions are aimed at car owners while others are aimed at users.
• The third picture is the rectification notice for Hitch. With a company as large as Didi's user base, it took a week to rectify a module, which shows that the reflection is still relatively positive.

II. User Service Functions

From the above screenshots, we can see that Didi Chuxing has corresponding functions for users’ financial problems and some payment issues. In addition, it also has the Didi Women’s Plan, but unfortunately, the current status of the plan is that it is about to be launched.

Apart from the above functions, Didi Chuxing has no other functions to ensure the safety of users. It is not difficult to see from the above situation that Didi Chuxing does have some shortcomings in terms of user safety.

3. Security features that can be considered

1. Strengthen supervision at the source

(1) Current situation

When users use a taxi app, they undoubtedly trust the platform. Imagine if a person wants to take a taxi, and then a car comes over and says, "I'm going to a certain place, and the route is the same as yours, so get in." So how many people would choose to take the ride in this situation? The answer is clear. Almost no one would choose to take the ride because the passengers know nothing about the drivers. Even if the passenger is a male, he has to guard against being sent to a pyramid scheme.

So to some extent, when passengers take a Didi Chuxing car, they will think that the car they are riding in is approved by Didi. However, the fact is, as has been revealed on the Internet more than once, drivers of Didi Chuxing can register using various methods, and many people even found that their ID cards had been used by others when registering. This is a huge safety hazard because in many cases, as long as users spend a certain amount of money, they can become a Didi driver, and the supervision in this process is not strict.

In this incident, the murderer used his father's account to take orders. To some extent, it was this irregular operation that led to the tragedy.

(2) Improvement methods

First of all, supervision should be strengthened during registration, and photos of registered users must be collected and matched with the photos on their ID cards. In addition, when the user successfully registers and starts operating , the vehicle should be equipped with a surveillance camera. The user's face can be photographed and compared with his or her own photo at any time using technology. Once a mismatch occurs, the vehicle's business status will be immediately stopped. If there are customers on the vehicle, the customer will be informed of the risk via text message.

In fact, the corresponding technology has been applied in many places. For example, when taking a driver's license test and many professional ability tests, the user and the photo will be monitored at all times for comparison. Of course, during the test, the monitoring is mostly done by people, because they need to know whether the user is cheating; for drivers, the monitoring can use computers to automatically judge, as long as it can be proved that the driver and the registered person are the same person.

This can prevent problematic drivers from joining in the first place, and on the other hand, it makes it much more difficult for drivers to impersonate others. It can almost completely eliminate the problem of the driver and the registered person being different.

The functions that need to be added to implement this method are: a camera that can take a picture of the driver's face and a function that can compare the photo captured by the camera with the photo.

2. Strengthen supervision during operation

Each vehicle is equipped with a positioning system, so the vehicle's location information can be detected by the system. Therefore, when the user is riding in a car, the system can judge the car 's driving route. Once the car's driving path exceeds the range recognized by the system, the system will inform the passenger of the situation in the form of a text message. . In addition, the system will also send the information to the platform, and the platform can then assign customer service to contact the driver to inquire about the relevant situation.

The functions that need to be added to implement this method are: vehicle location information and operation path comparison function.

3. Take remedial measures when an incident occurs

No matter how supervision is carried out, we have to admit that the development of cases is almost impossible to prevent, and supervision is more about reducing the chances of cases. Therefore, timely handling is essential when the incident occurs.

(1) How to determine the occurrence of a crime

• Active reporting by users is an important method, but in many cases users may not be able to report to the police;
• Using the camera mentioned in 1, once the driver has improper behavior, it is possible that his eyes are not fixed on the road ahead for a long time. In this way, the problem can still be found through the comparison software. The customer service of the vehicle with the problem can be contacted by phone. If the contact cannot be made, it can be judged as a crime.
• Using the vehicle positioning comparison mentioned in 2 is also a way of judgment. When an abnormality occurs and the driver cannot be contacted, it can be judged that a crime has occurred.

Functions that need to be added to implement this method: Add a "one-click rescue" function to the app.

(2) What to do after the incident

First of all, you should call the police after the incident and provide them with all the information about the vehicle involved, including its location. At the same time, make the vehicle have distinctive features that can attract the attention of surrounding vehicles and pedestrians, such as having the vehicle involved sound an alarm. At the same time, you can also inform other Didi vehicles within the range, inform them of the case, and request the corresponding drivers to provide assistance.

In this way, once an incident occurs, the vehicle involved will face pursuit by the police, pressure from surrounding people and vehicles, and pressure from other Didi vehicles. In this way, even if the persons involved in the case control the victim, they will have little chance to commit the crime and will be forced to stop the vehicle and undergo inspection in a very short time.

The functions required to implement this method are: adding a vehicle alarm and the alarm is remotely operated, and the driver cannot stop the operation of the alarm.

4. Severe punishment after the fact

Drivers who violate the regulations will be subject to certain penalties. In addition to bearing corresponding criminal and civil liabilities, Didi should also punish them. The punishment may be a permanent ban from joining Didi Chuxing, etc.

Of course, the above-mentioned violations refer to violations of various regulations and are not limited to behaviors that reach the level of criminal cases. In fact, if it reaches the level of a criminal case, the company almost does not need to be punished, and the state will punish it severely.

5. Improve the evaluation mechanism

Evaluation is always an important reference for users to make choices. Generally speaking, it is almost impossible for passengers to maliciously evaluate drivers. And considering the number of passengers drivers receive every day, one or two malicious evaluations will not have much impact on the driver's overall score. Therefore, the evaluation system can be set up to be more favorable to passengers.

The user's evaluation of the driver is not visible to the driver on the same day and can only be seen the next day. Users can choose to make an anonymous evaluation, and the anonymous evaluation will not even show the time. This allows users to evaluate the driver more objectively and fairly.

In addition to affecting the choices of other passengers, the platform can also directly intervene. For example, drivers with low ratings will have lower priority in accepting orders, and their income after accepting orders will decrease.

6. Regularly check drivers

It can be considered to ask drivers to submit various certification materials regularly. The platform needs to be aware of the physical and mental health of drivers and cannot allow drivers with problems to operate. Because passenger safety is not necessarily caused intentionally by the driver; if the driver has health problems, the interests of passengers may also be harmed. This system protects both passengers and drivers.

IV. Conclusion

Although the probability of an accident is only one in ten thousand, that one in ten thousand is absolutely unbearable for everyone, so safety is definitely the biggest problem. The strategies mentioned above can be summarized as follows:

1. Strengthen entry supervision and add an image comparison system to monitor whether the driver is the real person;
2. Use positioning systems to alert vehicles to any irregularities;
3. Discover the incident promptly and use multiple forces to protect the interests of passengers;
4. Severe punishment after the fact increases the cost of violations;
5. Improve the evaluation mechanism to ensure that excellent drivers receive excellent treatment;
6. Regular inspections ensure the safety of drivers and passengers.

I hope Didi Chuxing can make efforts in many aspects to improve the software's security system and provide users with safer and more considerate services.

The author of this article @马璐 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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