Chelaile, an Internet company operating a smart phone app for bus schedules, announced the end of their "personalized bus" services in Tianjin on June 5. The service lasted only three days.
Based on more than two million app users in Tianjin, Chelaile decided to personalize bus lines during peak hours in the morning and at night to save office workers from crowded buses.
The bus lines were optimized according to the most visited stations in the app, according to Ma Chengjie, supervisor of the company's bus business department. Passengers could order bus tickets in advance via Wechat, and the "personalized bus" service guarantees passengers their own seats and travel without transfers. The service aims to improve travel speed, convenience, and comfort level.
The company cooperated with different bus companies and chose qualified companies to operate buses with 17 to 50 seats. According to Ma, general bus companies leave many buses unused. Integrating passengers' needs with unused resources is a way to greatly improve vehicle utilization.
The prices of bus tickets ranged between one to five yuan ($0.16 to $0.81),almost the same as general public transportation.
Chelaile released statistics which showed a total of 10,035 bus line requirements were created by users in Tianjin during June 2 to 5. Only 53 users bought tickets, among which 38 successfully took the personalized bus, while the remaining 15 did not. The company promised to compensate the users by paying 100 times of the ticket price.
Unlike general buses, the "personalized bus" service omits market research to discover the real needs of a bus line.
"The team and the services have great quality. The company hopes the product can be launched as soon as possible. But we did not have enough research in Tianjin, including the transportation market and related policies. In addition, the company lacked of efficient communication with the public administrative departments," according to Chelaile.
Chelaile found out that new bus lines must be approved by administrative departments after entering the market, according to the company. The company received a great response in Tianjin. Chelaile decided to suspend the "personalized service" to work on policies, markets, environment, and government relations. It will return to Tianjin market in the future, according to the company.
The essential idea of Internet corporations' entering into the public transportation industry is improving the load factor of each vehicle. The operation pattern of Chelaile is selling the unused seats.
As considering the safety issue, the public transportation is under authorized operation pattern. The Internet corporations lack information on rented vehicles, drivers, and driver training and had little control over speed during operation. These are important issues concerning passengers' safety and have clear regulations by administrative departments.
Industry professionals said that selling unused seats is a wonderful concept from economic angles, as corporations in the transportation industry can have extra revenues.
But from safety angle, hidden dangers do exist. To a large extent, public transportation is seen as non-profit. Sufficiently use of transportation resources itself should be promoted. But the essence lies in how to implement in a reasonable and legal way.
"Our company is not full prepared in driver training and bus line enactment. The public transportation market in Tianjin is in great order. We try to communicate with local public transportation departments and operations without disrupting the existing situation. The company will make every effort to work together with local public transportation operations in the approved range by the administrative departments," said Chelaile.
Tianjin public transportation departments have tried to enact personalized bus lines. Compared with Internet corporations, the work experienced lower efficiency and flexibility.
A new bus line requires route design, passenger communication, administrative approval, and driver training. It usually takes more than 20 days to approve a general bus line, far slower than the Internet corporations, according to Tianjin Public Transportation Group.
Furthermore, big data is not used enough in traditional industries.
"Personalized buses have high market potential and face a variety of difficulties in development. In order to attract passengers, personalized buses should drive faster than general buses and are cheaper than taxies. The price of personalized buses is low enough. But the driving speed is limited because of the undeveloped bus lane system," said Tianjin Public Transportation Group.
"Moreover, we have implemented the establishment of eight major projects in public transportation industry, have enacted a three-year plan on public transportation and have established smart public transportation through establishing informational corporations," said Tianjin Public Transportation Group.
"We do not reject Internet corporations," said Tianjin Public Transportation Group. The involvement of "Internet plus" in public transportation is accelerating, which is an opportunity for traditional public transportation.
"With the improvement of bus lanes and the completion of smart transportation, the result of the smart transportation will soon be enjoyed by Tianjin residents," added Tianjin Public Transportation Group.
