We mentioned sharing economy, the most popular new concept in recent years, in the previous analysis of hot topic--please mention various fees. In this context, free ride, ride-hailing services and other similar businesses launched by ride-hailing platform are increasingly favored by the masses. In recent years, ride-hailing platforms such as Shenzhou, Didi, Uber and Dida have sprung up like mushrooms in public. In order to seize the user resources, they have launched a number of promotions. As the saying goes, it is easier to start a business than to keep it. The running and supervision problems of ride-hailing platforms are gradually exposed in daily life.

Recently, the Intermediate People’s Court of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, held a trial privately to hear the case of ‘free ride driver of Didi killing’, in which the People's Procuratorate of Wenzhou requested that the defendant Zhongyuan should be prosecuted for criminal liability for intentional homicide, rape and robbery according to law. In fact, more than 100 days before the case, Li Mingzhu, a flight attendant, was also killed by the driver for free ride in a Didi taxi. The two cases happened successively, which aroused the distrust and disappointment of the masses towards the ride-hailing platform and exposed the supervision problems of the whole industry.

First, to re-understand the ride-hailing platform

The main business of the platform is to reserve online taxi(hereinafter referred to as ‘ride-hailing’) and private passenger car sharing(hereinafter referred to as ‘free ride’). The difference between the two lies in their relationship with ride-hailing platform.

(I) Analyzing the relationship between ride-hailing services, free rides and ride-hailing platforms based on China’s judicial cases

We know from more than 100 judgments about ‘free ride’ and ‘ride-hailing’ found on the Judge’s Document website that the majority of judges’ opinions on the relationship between ride-hailing platforms and drivers are inclined to be in the direction of employment. In the analysis of the legal point between employer and employee, ride-hailing drivers provide vehicle information and personal information to the platform, which is managed by the platform(not limited to collecting customer information, pricing rules, assigning tasks, route customization, and extracting service fees from the road fees, etc). The performance of tasks by the ride-hailing drivers is a duty behavior.

As for the relationship between ride-hailing platforms and hitch-hikers, judges are inclined to be in the direction of intermediary service relationship. We have learned from ‘the interim measures on the management of online reserved taxi services’ that private passenger car sharing, also known as carpooling and free ride, shall be pursuant to the relevant provisions of the urban people’s government and shall not be bound by this law. At present, there is a blank in our country’s legislation on the regulation of free ride business management. This does not, however, exempt the platform from liability.

(ii) whether the platform can be charged for the infringement of free ride and ride-hailing

The majority of the judges held that the platform provided an intermediary service rather than a carrier service to drivers and passengers who were hitching rides. Carpool providers take carpool riders on rides, not for profit. The co-riders pay the carpool providers a certain amount of service fee, which is used to share the travel cost, far lower than the taxi or ride-hailing fee. The platform charges ride-sharing providers a certain amount of information service fee, which is also much lower than the service fee of the special and express train. Therefore, the relevant responsibilities and obligations shall be borne by each party. If the passengers’ interests are damaged because the platform provides false information, passengers can hold the platform to account.

The service agreement between online reserved cars(including ride-hailing, express train, special car, luxury cars, etc) and passengers has given an explanation i.e. the platform, in the ride-hailing services range, could pay for them firstly according to its designated security products services and shall have the right to recover the corresponding responsibility when the infringer or the contract breacher are not able to compensate or don’t compensate within reasonable time. Therefore, passengers can hold the platform to account. 

Second, how to prevent risks for platforms, drivers and passengers

While pursuing interests, the platform should also strengthen its supervision. First, the relationship between the platform and the drivers and passengers should be clarified, and the risks faced by the drivers and passengers should be informed by clear symbolic words. Second, optimize the platform system, verify the real identity of drivers and passengers through multiple links and departments, and keep customer information confidential, such as secondary processing of mobile phone numbers and clear processing of profile pictures. The third is security issues, such as the installation of remote monitoring in the car, emergency alarm button, and the platform first time to verify all kinds of safety information after passengers get on the cars.

For drivers, regardless of whether you are providing free rides or ride-hailing services, the driving should be regulated. If the driver of free rides changes the nature of the vehicle without authorization leading to a traffic accident occurring in the running of ride-hailing, the driver will be legally rejected settlement of insurance claim by the insurance company.

For passengers, the biggest risk is the injury caused by traffic accident and the compensation for personal and property damage. However, if the passenger insists on taking the car even though he/she knows that the driver is drunk, driving without a license or has other illegal driving behaviors, the passenger will face the risk of bearing the corresponding damage consequences by himself/herself. Therefore, passengers should be cautious in their choice of service.

For the development of ride-hailing platform industry, not only the efforts of the platform itself, but also the joint supervision of the government, society and the masses are required to make it better. Although disappointed by its regulatory neglect of duty, we still hope that it can ‘repent past mistakes’ and return to our daily life in a more standardized and safer way to share the burden of transportation expenses with us.