More than 600 Million Yuan to Be Invested in Safety Over Next Two Years: Zhou Shengfu, CEO of Lalamove

Zhou Shengfu, CEO of vehicle-hailing platform Lalamove, said on Tuesday that all safety improvement measures that the company promised earlier have now been fully put into force.

After launching travel recording on March 11 and starting to install the “Anxinla (安心拉),” an intelligent traveling data recorder, Lalamove on Tuesday carried out new functions including location protection, overdue order warning and safety center.

On February 6, a 23-year-old woman jumped out of the vehicle she had hailed on Lalamove’s app. The true reason behind her decision remains a mystery due to the lack of any audio or video footage of what transpired inside the van.

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In a letter issued within the firm, Zhou personally apologized to all employees. “It’s my fault for not optimizing safety measures earlier and properly handling the incident. I feel very sad that everyone was scolding the drivers registered on our app.” Zhou said.

After the incident, Zhou initially intended to discontinue the high-risk ride-hailing service which accounts for a low proportion of the firm’s overall business. However, in the end, he thought the company must bear its social responsibility, remaining loyal to its core value of solving social problems.

In the letter, he also unveiled the safety plan to be rolled out over the next two years. By the end of this year, “Anxinla (安心拉)” will cover more than half of orders on the app, including all orders in cities with more than 1000 orders per day. Additionally, more than 600 million yuan will be invested in improving security throughout the next two years.

In order to strengthen the safety guarantee for users’ travel, Lalamove fully upgraded its “safety center” feature by adding the functions of recording, location protection, emergency contact, number protection, and travel sharing.

If the user places an order at night (between 20:00 to 6:00 the next day), he or she must fill in the information of either oneself or an emergency contact. The user can share the order itinerary with the emergency contact or friends, who can click the itinerary link to view the vehicle’s real-time location.

In case of danger or emergency, users can directly call the police with one button on the order operation page, or dial the security line linking to the customer service center. Once receiving the alarm, the staff will call back within ten minutes and the emergency contact will receive a message.

To quickly identify abnormal driving behavior such as erratic steering and unusual periods without motion, Lalamove launched the function of travel position protection. In the event of an emergency, the suspension frame of the safety center will change from blue to red and warning messages will be sent to seek help.

If the order is overdue, the warning system will intervene. Once the high-risk warning is triggered, the customer service will immediately take appropriate measures.