I have to say for the most part I love the taxi drivers in Wuhan, Shanghai, and Beijing. Most of them are very knowledgeable about the city and are very frank with their opinions. The only cities where I have had issues with the taxi drivers are Dalian and Guang Zhou. In both of those cases, the taxi driver tried to avoid using the meter and/or tried to overcharge use for a trip by telling us that there are surcharges that did not exist.
Notice that despite the reputation of Wuhan people being the “rudest in China,” according to some of the other Chinese locals and students I have met, most of my experiences, especially with Wuhan taxi drivers have been the opposite. One of the Wuhan taxi drivers offered me some local delicacies when he found out that I was not local. Another Wuhan taxi driver was scheduled to pick me up but then could not so he called a friend to drive me to the train station instead of leaving me stranded. All in all, I think that all those actions show that they are pretty nice.
As for the Uber situation… I am pretty happy that Uber is losing money in China because I like the government sanctioned taxi drivers. In Shanghai, one of the taxi drivers I was talking to was complaining about the amount of money he has lost since DiDi Da Che and Uber has come into the mix. He told me that business was the worst than it has been in years and at first none of the other drivers could figure out why. Later the drivers realized that Uber was doing a special where they were trying to gain market share – trips to the airport during Chinese New Years was only 80 yuan when normally it would be at least 120 yuan.
The Shanghai driver felt that this was unfair but there was nothing they could do about the situation. In some ways, he felt that local taxi drivers actually brought it on themselves because when DiDi Da Che first started, they recruited taxi drivers to use their service and the taxi drivers jumped on the bandwagon because sometimes they made more money per a ride. Unfortunately, those same drivers realized later that they advertised the service to their clients and now that DiDi Da Che also has private drivers, their profits are down.
Frankly, I like the Shanghai regulation of the taxi drivers and the Beijing system is just as strict. There are customer service numbers to call if there is a problem and because of the oversight there are less issues of people driving you in circles. These days in the larger cities your biggest worries are going to be getting stuck in traffic more so than an unscrupulous driver taking you on a “grand tour of the city.”
Uber car-hire app losing $1bn in China every year, says CEO – http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35610147
Current Mood: Finding the TED Conference Enlightening and looking forward to hearing more about other people’s experiences. Not keen on being an entrepreneur but I like knowledge.