7.58 Million Didi Passengers in First 10 Days of Spring Festival

On February 12, Didi released data from the first 10 days of this year's Spring Festival (February 1 to February 10). According to the data, 7.58 million people returned home via the ridesharing service. This represents 8.42 percent of the 90 million railway passengers or 47.3 percent of the 16.0191 million flight passengers during the same period.

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This figure is close to the 8.43 million total Didi passengers during the 2017 Spring Festival. This number of people is equivalent to 11,347 high-speed rail trains or 42,000 Boeing 737s. General Manager of Didi Business Department Huang Jieli said, “For the second year, Didi put forward the notion of Flexible Spring Festival. Didi hopes that by sharing rides, travelers who couldn't get tickets or who reschedule their return home from the festival can now travel in a more flexible and convenient way.” The data showed an increase in inter-city travel on February 2, when Spring Festival travel rush began. On February 9, it reached a peak of nearly 800,000 ridesharing passengers. According to the data, 51 percent of rides during those 10 days were between 30 and 100 kilometers, or one to four hours. The longest ride was from Ningbo to Chuxiong, spanning more than 2,400 kilometers. 120,000 pets also were transported during the first 10 days of the Spring Festival.

Chengdu is the most popular departure city

The 10-day data showed that the top 10 most popular departure cities were, in descending order, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Hefei, Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Huizhou, Foshan, and Zhengzhou. Intercity travel was highest in the Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region. Travel among Beijing, Langfang, Shijiazhuang, and other cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region ranked second. During the Spring Festival travel rush, first-tiered city workers all returned to their hometown.

Generous drivers offer free rides

According to Didi, drivers and passengers were likely fellow townsmen. Delighted by conversations with passengers, many drivers would provide trips free of charge. The 17,436 trips provided free of charge within those 10 days were equivalent to 1.2 million yuan. The data showed that drivers from Hangzhou were most generous, offering more free trips than anyone else. Drivers from Chengdu, Taiyuan, Quanzhou and Guangzhou ranked second, third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, in their number of free trips. Didi forecasted that the total number of Spring Festival rideshare travelers will reach 33 million this year. This is the third year that Didi ridesharing is available during the Spring Festival travel rush. Ridesharing has become a significant alternative to rail, air, bus, and other conventional transportation means.

This article originally appeared in Tencent Tech and was translated by Pandaily.