"I earn more than 100 yuan a day on weekdays, and I can earn 3,500 yuan a day in the past month. ”
During the Spring Festival holiday, a large number of young people returned to their hometowns for the New Year, and the county-level online car-hailing market also ushered in a wave of small spring.
Wu Jiang (pseudonym), who drives an online ride-hailing car in Sanjiang County, Liuzhou, told the Times reporter that when there is still half a month before Chinese New Year's Eve, the county's ** began to increase, and the income of him and his peers began to double, "This heat will continue after the Lantern Festival."
This is not the hottest time for the local ride-hailing market.
From 2017 to 2019, local full-time ride-hailing drivers earned more than 10,000 yuan a month. When it comes to holidays such as the National Day and the Spring Festival, it is not a problem to have a daily turnover of seven or eight hundred yuan, or even thousands of yuan.
At that time, it was a period of rapid development of the online car-hailing industry, and the platform paid out of its own pocket to give profits to drivers and passengers, and under various subsidies and incentives, online car-hailing became a popular industry with low threshold and high income.
However, as the number of drivers becomes increasingly saturated, it is difficult for passenger travel demand to grow, and the industry has begun to roll in. The battle between the major online car-hailing platforms in order to grab passengers is basically paid by the driver.
Source: Picture Worm Creative
Between the ebb and flow, some people who once entered the industry due to low thresholds and high returns converged, some persevered in frustration, and some found another way.
By extending the time of the sports car, Wujiang maintains a monthly income of more than 3,000 yuan, "This figure is difficult to compare with the past, but save a little and work hard, everyone lives like this."
Wu Jiang's former colleague, Mo Mingkai (pseudonym) thinks differently, after the sports car income cliff **, he bluntly said that this is a "white job", and now he is looking for a new job.
This is also the choice of nearly one-third of the county's ride-hailing drivers in the past two years.
Half the time to run a big order.
Sanjiang County is not a big county, and in Wujiang's words, the starting price of a taxi at any location in the city can reach any destination in the city.
This also determines the work characteristics of Wu Jiang and his peers - it is rare to receive "big orders" with high unit prices, and the 10-12 hours of sports car time a day are mostly composed of more than a dozen or twenty "small orders".
It's a little different when it comes to the holidays. Liuzhou is a famous tourist destination in Guangxi, and there is usually an influx of tourists, coupled with the return of migrant workers, there are more large and small orders all of a sudden.
Many tourists rush to scenic spots from train stations and county towns (mostly distributed in towns and villages), and a list ranges from 10-30 kilometers; Young people who return to their hometowns for the festival also like to take a taxi, and it is also more than ten kilometers from the station to various villages and towns. Wu Jiang said that the Spring Festival has injected a large number of tourists and young people returning to the county, and in the past month, almost half of the time every day has been running large orders, and the income has increased several times compared with normal days.
Scenery of Sanjiang County Photo by Zeng Siyi
Mo Mingkai, who returned to his hometown for the New Year, did not miss this heat, and spent most of the Spring Festival holiday picking up customers in sports cars.
His pick-up location is more targeted than Wujiang's, because he is more interested in the efficiency of making money. "I only pick up people at the train station, (according to the distance of the road) 10 to 50 yuan per person, get together a car of people and set off, run three or five times a day, the gross profit is five or six hundred yuan."
Wu Jiang and Mo Mingkai both said that these orders from stations, urban areas and other gathering points to remote villages and towns will be charged "air return fees" depending on the distance, "This is different from someone placing an order at any time in the urban area, I send people to the past (township), and I can only empty the car when I come back, and there is no order in the township."
With the rise in the popularity of holiday travel, there is also the county's online car-hailing capacity.
A number of local online car-hailing drivers told the Times Weekly reporter that there are currently about 600 registered online car-hailing drivers in the county, and more than 100 have been active for a long time in the past two years.
However, during the Spring Festival and other important holidays, when ** flock to this county, the online car-hailing drivers who originally changed careers will also take advantage of this time to take orders, "It is estimated that there will be more than 200 people running online car-hailing during this Spring Festival."
The 8th year of entering the county seat.
In 2016, relevant policies were promulgated to determine the legal status of online car-hailing in China. In the following years, the development of the online car-hailing industry ushered in a first-class period, penetrating from large cities to small cities and counties.
In the impression of many drivers, the earliest online car-hailing in Sanjiang also appeared in 2016. At that time, in order to occupy the market, the platform gave multiple rewards and discounts to the driver and passengers, and the scale of local drivers and passengers continued to expand.
It was at this time that Wu Jiang entered the game. He had no experience and plans to be a driver earlier, but under the impetus of various driver-oriented rewards at that time, he and many friends around him registered as an online car-hailing driver with the mentality of trying.
They have indeed caught up with the bonus period of industry development, "running 10 hours a day, and earning more than 10,000 yuan a month is not a problem".
This has been followed by a change in the traditional way of travel in the county.
Lin Xin is a native of Sanjiang, in her memory, before there was no online car-hailing, the bus was often crowded, and the traffic in the city can choose the "three jumpers" and taxis, among which the riding experience is poor, but the more affordable "three jumpers" is the more mainstream choice at that time, and the urban and rural traffic is based on fixed-point, timed buses and on-call "vans" (multi-seat small private buses).
Ride-hailing is more convenient than traditional buses, buses, and private buses, cheaper than taxis, and more comfortable than most traditional paid travel modes. Lin Xin is in her early 30s this year, and she chooses online car-hailing for commuting and shopping in urban areas on weekdays, while taking buses or regular buses is given priority for urban and rural traffic.
Night traffic photo by Zeng Siyi
Friends around me are basically like this, even if they buy their own cars, they often choose online car-hailing in the city, after all, parking fees are sometimes higher than online car-hailing orders. Lin Xin believes that in recent years, online car-hailing has become the mainstream choice for a considerable number of young people to travel in urban areas.
However, there are also areas that are difficult for ride-hailing to shake.
Middle-aged and elderly passengers are more unfamiliar with online taxis, and they are also more sensitive to **, and will basically choose lower-priced buses, private buses and regular buses.
For longer journeys up to 5 kilometres, ride-hailing fees will also dissuade most young people who are more willing to sacrifice some time and foot strength to take cheaper transportation.
At the same time, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of private cars in the local area.
It's not as good as before."
However, the demand for travel is limited.
In the opinion of many ride-hailing drivers, the travel demand in the local ride-hailing sector reached a bottleneck as early as around 2018.
However, whether it's the high salary** of driving a ride-hailing service in the early days, or the constant attraction as a reservoir of employment, local ride-hailing drivers have been growing.
This also means that the node of "more monks and less porridge" will come sooner or later. In Sanjiang, this node is 2019.
A number of online car-hailing drivers said that in 2019 and previous years, it was not a problem to drive an online car-hailing car with a turnover of 300 yuan a day, but since then, the order flow has begun to fall off a cliff**, although the travel demand is high in the past 2023, it is also difficult to stop the involution caused by the saturation of drivers, "It used to be more than 300 a day, but now it takes a longer time to run, and more than 100 is good."
Taking Wu Jiang as an example, if it were not for holidays, his average daily turnover would be more than 100 yuan, and his average monthly net income would be more than 3,000 yuan, provided that he increased his sports car time from 10 hours a day to 12 hours a day.
There are friends who work harder by my side. Wu Jiang said that some people take out loans to buy cars to run (online car-hailing), and they have to repay the car loan every month, and often run until two o'clock in the middle of the night to go home, and the next morning at six or seven o'clock to get out of the car, "but even if you work hard, earning four or five thousand a month is the ceiling."
Mo Mingkai has been working in Liuzhou city for several years, just started to enter the factory, but he does not like to be controlled, he said that driving can give him relative freedom, and later changed careers to drive minivans, with a stable income of more than 6,000 yuan a month. Online car-hailing has become a side business, returning to his hometown during holidays, and when the ** surge occurs, it is the time of high returns for passengers, and he doesn't want to miss it.
When mentioning the decline in the efficiency of online car-hailing, they will invariably compare it with the cost of living in the county, "eating, drinking and having fun, the price is not lower than that of second- and third-tier cities".
To some extent, this statement may not be an exaggeration, such as in snacks, fast food, leisure and entertainment, life services, etc., compared with large cities, the county economy of scale is not obvious, and businesses need to exchange price for volume.
For most local ride-hailing practitioners, the only thing they can exchange for maintaining revenue is time.