Internet Reservation for Hire Car Service (Internet Rental): This refers to a new service model based on the mobile Internet, with a cell phone app as the main service platform, providing a guaranteed connection service between customers with travel needs and drivers with travel service qualifications and capabilities. In addition to providing car rental services, this new service model can also develop and integrate a series of comprehensive services through the innovative use of information technology, big data analysis technology and management optimization technology, such as: driver service quality and credit evaluation, service traceability before, during and after the whole process, navigation, carpooling, automated traffic dispatch, urban traffic congestion management, and even regional and urban competitiveness evaluation, etc.
Uber: Uber is a transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, which provides mobile Internet-based car rental and real-time ride-sharing services by linking passengers and drivers with a mobile application (APP). Uber currently offers services in dozens of cities around the world.
Specialized car services: including No.1 car, Tiki car, Shenzhou car, etc., is the development of the domestic market, and Uber similar Internet car rental services, but there are fundamental differences, special car services mainly for high-end users, its drivers and vehicle resources mainly from the vehicle rental company, theoretically qualified to operate, although the same because of playing rubbish has caused opposition from cab drivers.
In the current Internet car rental services, Tic-Tac and Fast usually boast that they only provide an information communication platform between cabs and customers with operating qualifications, while Uber is purely a simple trading platform for any driver with transportation capabilities and qualifications and customers with travel needs. The online taxi service is a typical innovation of the sharing economy in the era of “Internet+”. As far as public travel services are concerned, the value of internet-booked rental car services is obvious and clear. Of course, there are problems and obstacles that should not be taken lightly.
Let’s first imagine the impact of online taxi services on the various stakeholders in our urban development. The impact on stakeholders. The traveling public There is no doubt that the travel needs of the public will be better met, costs will be reduced, and the quality of service will be personalized and significantly improved. As mentioned earlier, the network booking taxi service has made travel services ubiquitous and available at their fingertips. As idle social vehicles are released and utilized to some extent, the total number of vehicles involved in the travel service market will grow significantly. This will help alleviate the problem of difficult taxi rides and increase social satisfaction. At the same time, the increase in the number of competing vehicles will lead to the formation of a fully competitive cab market, and the cost of travel for the public will be further reduced.
On the other hand, there are also hidden worries: if the market under the network booking taxi service is not properly regulated, people’s travel safety and privacy will not be guaranteed. This will be a key element in the development of the online taxi service and even the sharing economy.
Cab drivers (including special cars and other Internet rental car drivers) drivers can be divided into three categories: the first category is the original cab drivers, the second category is the drivers of vehicle rental companies, and the third category is private car owners. For the first and second category of drivers, they are free to engage in Internet car rental services after the liberalization of online rental car services, and it is reasonable to believe that their income will not decrease but may increase in the short term, while in the long term it will be determined by both market demand and competition in service supply. For the third category of private car drivers, it means that they have obtained the operating license and legal status from the original “black car”.
Cab companies and vehicle leasing companies In the original system, these two types of companies were stakeholders who were licensed to operate and had a monopoly on rental services, and will be most affected by the collapse of their monopoly status. They can improve their competitiveness by actively shifting to online taxi service platforms.
Society and Environment Since internet-booked taxi service is a call-response-based service demand-pull model, service vehicles will not need to drive in circles on the road, the idling rate will be greatly reduced, and traffic congestion and energy waste can be effectively alleviated. At the same time, a huge amount of potential social capacity resources are released, and people’s travel needs are met more conveniently and individually, increasing social satisfaction.
Of course, we also need to see that as more private cars flood onto the streets, new sources of traffic congestion may be formed. On the other hand, regulatory issues such as ride safety and accident liability will become an issue that must be given high priority. Without the establishment of a sound management and regulatory mechanism, network-booked rental car services may bring about many new social problems.
Government Management Developing online booking cab services and ensuring the healthy and orderly operation of the new cab market, bringing into play its positive energy and curbing potential risks will pose a serious challenge to the government’s governance capacity. These are two sides of the same coin, and getting it right will improve satisfaction at the social, environmental, and economic levels. And in terms of the difficulty of the problem, doing it well should be much more likely than doing it poorly.
