One year has passed since the regulation on the management of car-hailing services was issued by the Ministry of Transportation and six other relevant authorities. Since then, less than 100,000 drivers have got permits to provide car-hailing services in China, but the market has more than 200 million consumers. When the legalization of car-hailing services started one year ago, the public hoped that healthy market competition would appear, but one year later, conventional taxis have come to dominate city streets again.

The regulation allows local authorities to work out their own specific rules on how to operate the business. Thus, many restrictions have been formulated. As a result, while the number of drivers engaged in the business has diminished, the number of cars available for hailing has also decreased.

The policy of regulating car-hailing services means to guarantee safe rides. However, to impose massive restrictions on this business will inevitably make travel more difficult for the public.

This is not a result expected by either the government or the public. The government needs to pay more attention to residents' actual needs and thus, while trying to curb disorderly development of the car-hailing sector, relevant authorities should be more careful and considerate in dealing with new economic models like this. More tolerance is needed. After all, whether the car-hailing business can develop smoothly will not only affect drivers' employment prospects, but also a large number of urban residents' daily life.

(This is an edited excerpt of an article published in Guangming Daily on August 8)