| With the taxi-booking APP introduced to the taxi market in 2011, mobile taxi-booking APP allows for calling, booking and paying taxi whenever and wherever possible after a few years of operation. Since then, this fast and convenient form has enjoyed great popularity among taxi drivers and passengers. On the one hand, this APP effectively eases the "difficulty in taking a taxi", so that it is no longer a trouble for passengers; on the other hand, it optimizes the taxi market resources efficiently, thus the informational unbalance between the taxi practitioners and passengers is well solved. Also, it cuts back the no-load rate and achieves better benefits for passengers and taxi drivers. However, in addition to these advantages, it also brings other troubles. For passengers, as success rate of hailing a taxi in a traditional manner is lower and lower, the elderly passengers and special occupational groups are thus significantly influenced; as for taxi drivers, special taxi service launched by the taxi-booking APP company occupies their core interests in its market. As problems of taxi-booking APP have aroused a wide range of social concerns, policies related to this APP have been introduced in various areas.In the last few years, Beijing has issued a series of regulations to standardize the mobile taxi-booking service, such as the Proposed Regulation on Mobile Taxi-booking Service in Beijing. For instance, the traffic department in Shanghai has also taken action in managing this service, by promulgating the Measures on Strengthening Taxi Service Management. It specifically prohibits taxi drivers from using the taxi-booking APP in the peak period, answering and using phone and other terminal equipment while driving, and also prevents private vehicles from carrying out business activities by means of taxi-booking APP. On May 27,2014, the Ministry of Communications made unified provisions on the taxi market in terms of the use of APP, which pointed out that the relevant departments needed to enhance management and unified arrangement for mobile taxi-booking service. Thus, it gradually allows for multi-level and multi-channel taxi-booking forms such as the telephone, mobile software and online booking. However, the management policies, no matter introduced by Ministry of Communications or local governments, fail to totally regulate the taxi-booking software market. As a result, the existing management problems still cannot be resolved.In this paper, the taxi market management problems caused by taxi-booking software are studied. It mainly expatiates on the research background, significance, relevant domestic and foreign researches and research methods in terms of government’s managing taxi market operation using software; then, the relevant concepts involved in the paper (taxi-booking software, taxi, special car, etc.) and theoretical basis are presented; also, the current condition, characteristics and existing problems of the software are analyzed from the perspectives of popularization foundation, development history as well as development regions; with the methods for data collection, data analysis, comparison and induction, it summarizes the trend of taxi-booking software, and explores the cause for disordered taxi market while admitting its positive roles; in addition, the specific cases of guiding and advancing the use of software by both domestic and foreign governments, and inspirations learned from these are shown; finally, the paper puts forward some pertinent policies and suggestions on how to avoid previous problems in dealing with this kind of issue for governments, and to improve the governmental special car management of mobile taxi-booking software as well.The innovations of this paper are as following:Firstly, it clarifies problems in the taxi-booking software market and the new problems occurred in managing market by government. Based on positive roles of software, the paper also explores the troubles it brings and their causes at different stages. Then, by means of the data analysis, problems existed in the taxi-booking software are elaborated since its introduction to present. Finally, thanks to the successful examples domestically and internationally, it concludes a series of policy suggestions on effectively managing taxi-booking software market with the logical and theoretical thinking. |
