Didi resumes nighttime carpooling service for same-sex riders

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Chinese car-hailing giant Didi Chuxing announced on Wednesday that the company will resume its nighttime carpooling service, provided both the driver and passengers are of the same sex.

“In order to meet our Hitch service users’s travelling needs, we plan to partially resume nighttime orders, allowing drivers to pick up passengers from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. and from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.,” Didi said in a statement. “For safety concerns, however, riders travelling within these two time slots must be from the same sex.”

Didi Hitch, the company’s carpooling service which matches passengers with car owners heading in the same direction, was been temporarily suspended last month following the brutal murder of a female passenger who used the service at late night.

The murder of the 21-year-old female passenger was reported and discussed widely on Chinese social media. /Screenshot from Weibo

On May 6, a 21-year-old female passenger surnamed Li from central China’s Zhengzhou City was found dead after using Didi Hitch. She was allegedly stabbed to death by her Didi driver who bypassed the app's defective safety controls.

Following the incident, Didi has been under fire for its security loopholes and promised to improve its safety measures.

A Didi sign at a Hitch service promotional event for the Spring festival travel rush in Beijing, Jan. 24, 2018. /Reuters Photo

For a start, the company temporarily suspended the Hitch service for a week. When the service resumed on May 19, new safety measures were imposed on both drivers and owners, and Didi limited the carpooling service hours to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with no nighttime orders allowed.

However, within a month, Didi has changed the rule, explaining that the decision was made after “extensively evaluating the updated security measurements.”

In the latest announcement, Didi also announced that they had entrusted a Beijing-based law firm to handle the one-million-yuan cash reward they earlier promised to the public. Following last month’s tragedy, Didi announced that they would offer up to a million yuan (approximately 155,800 US dollars) for any clues that lead to the suspect, but never fulfilled the promise.