China’s Didi Kuaidi to launch cross-city car-hailing service over Chinese New Year to aid world’s biggest human migration

China’s top car-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and chief rival Uber revealed this week their respective plans to expand in China, but uncertainty remains as to how such apps should be regulated.

Didi Kuaidi, which is backed by Chinese internet giants Tencent and Alibaba, said it will launch a cross-city ridesharing service during the annual Spring Festival next February, the biggest vacation of the year in China, in 400 cities on the mainland.

The move spells good news for hundreds of millions of migrant workers who form part of the biggest human migration in history each spring to reunite with their families.

Often, many struggle to make the journey as transport tickets are sold out months in advance, and car ownership remains relatively low among China’s blue collars.

Each time the big vacation rolls around, usually sometime in early February, China’s transit links are strained. Nearly 3.7 billion journeys are made on trains, buses and ferries over the 40-day festive period, even though the official Lunar New Year holiday lasts for less than a week.