Starting this January, Guangzhou's Baiyun Airport put new restrictions on those who use online car-hailing apps. Drivers on apps such as Didi Kuaidi are now required to go to a separate parking lot to wait for their customers, rather than picking them up directly at arrival areas A or B. Taxis and privately owned cars, on the other hand, are still allowed to operate normally.
The penalty for car-hailing app drivers who violate the rules is severe; if caught, their cars will be entered onto a blacklist that prevents them from doing any business at the airport in the future. According to the latest report, 26 cars have made it onto the blacklist so far.
Airport officials explained that the latest move was meant to reduce congestion in pickup areas. So far, it seems to have worked. According to one official, traffic volume in arrival area A has gone down a staggering 57 percent, while arrival area B has seen a 40.5 percent drop.
While that's good news for taxi drivers and those picking up friends or family members, it comes at the expense of people who make a living off car-hailing apps. The parking lot that app-using drivers have been rerouted to, P4, is at least an eight-minute walk away from the nearest arrival area gate. That distance may seem short, but it could be enough to discourage travel-weary passengers from booking their services.
An illustration shows the walking distance between P4 and the arrival areas
According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, one driver who uses the hailing app Shenzhou complained of just that: "[Customers] don’t want to walk over, or have a lot of luggage, [they] think it’s troublesome or don’t want to come over.” Apparently, more than one person had canceled on him after booking a ride.
Baiyun Airport's Chief Economic Manager Xie Bingxin explained the restriction as the most rational solution to the airport's traffic congestion problem:
"Normally consumers choose the closest car to ride, so cars hailed through online apps would continuously go to the A, B arrival areas, fighting for the closest distance to arriving travelers. There is a process of choosing and waiting...This problem was really apparent in the very resource-deprived A, B arrival areas, so we use different methods to deal with cars booked through online apps, and taxis."
A commentator on the government-sponsored TV program Guangdong Voice of the People Hotline apparently still questioned the decision. Xiang Xianjun suggested that the airport could have instead used a technology-driven system to pick out cars that entered the airport too many times a day, cutting off access after a certain number had been reached. He added that such a system was certainly doable, and preferable to "very crude methods that make people feel discriminated against." Since car-hailing apps are legal in China, he argued, those drivers should receive the same treatment as taxi operators.
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Despite the threat of punishment, it seems that not all car-hailing app drivers have been scared off. When an undercover reporter on the show pretended to be asking for directions near the arrival areas of Baiyun Airport, two cars immediately approached to offer a ride. The drivers also willingly pulled out their smartphones to show that they were legitimate drivers registered on online apps.
It's not clear what screening methods are being used to differentiate between privately owned cars and car-hailing app ones (when we called the airport, customer service personnel gave vague answers). In any case, for the time being it seems that passengers arriving at Baiyun Airport will have the best of both worlds: some access to car-hailing apps and less congested traffic. For the drivers employed by those apps, it's a different story.
With additional reporting by Ziyi Yuan.
[Images via Guangdong Voice of the People Hotline, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport]
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