Didi suspends late-night ride-hailing services for a week after second killing
The safety revamp comes in the wake of the death of a young female passenger at the hands of a driver, which brought the company back under scrutiny after its previous efforts to step up safety failed to prevent the crime
Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing platform, will suspend all late-night services on the mainland for a week to effect an overhaul of its safety practices, following the killing of a second passenger in three months by one of its drivers.
The suspension will apply to taxi-hailing and other car-on-demand services on its platform between 11pm and 5am, starting from this Saturday to September 15, the Beijing-based company said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
The week-long halt in late-night services is meant to allow Didi to phase in added safety measures, which include an upgrading of a panic button to a direct link to the police. The company will also trial in-trip audio recording and intensify background checks of drivers, according to the statement.
Other measures include expanding an in-house customer service team from 5,000 to 8,000. Last month, the company handled a daily average of 2.12 million incoming user calls, 71 per cent of which were processed by AI-enabled chatbots.
The revamp comes in the wake of the death of a young, female passenger at the hands of a driver, which brought the company back under scrutiny after its previous efforts to step up safety failed to prevent the crime. A review of public court records by the South China Morning Post showed at least a dozen sexual assault convictions involving Didi drivers and their passengers.