DIDI Kuaidi Co, China's biggest taxi-hailing application with over 80 percent market share, will launch a car pooling service this month in 26 cities nationwide including Shanghai.
It's the first time for a big Chinese firm to debut the service, market observers said.
“It's never an easy task to kick off car pooling in China because of challenges like user experience and safety,” said Liu Qing, president of Didi Kuaidi, the merged company of China's two most popular taxi-hailing apps — Alibaba-backed Kuaidi Taxi and Tencent-backed Didi.
The new car pooling services let commuters living in nearby neighborhoods share their rides, said Didi Kuaidi, which has more than 6 million orders each day in its mobile apps.
After trialing the car pooling service in Beijing for a month and officially debuting the service yesterday, it will be available in 26 cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Guangzhou.
The new service starts between 5 yuan (81 US cents) and 10 yuan, and passengers pay 1 yuan for each kilometer. For a taxi in Shanghai, the minimum charge is 14 yuan, and each kilometer costs over 2 yuan.
The car pooling service aims to get 1 million sharing rides this year, with a potential of over 100 million car owners and 200 million passengers in the country. Didi Kuaide will offer 500,000 yuan insurance for passengers and drivers for each trip.