The protection of the rights and interests of online ride-hailing drivers continues to receive attention. After the commission issue attracted attention, the "fixed price" model also attracted attention this year. Recently, many places have carried out management of low-price promotion activities.
The two sides of “fixed price”
"Fixed price" corresponds to Express's dynamic billing model, which means that the platform calculates based on big data and gives the actual payment amount for the order after the passenger determines the starting and ending points. The advantage of this model is that consumers can feel certainty. Industry insider Wang Lin (pseudonym) told China Business News that the "fixed price" model is indeed favored by consumers.
But on the driver side, the "fixed price" model has received completely different feedback. Wang Lin said that "fixed price" orders will be completed at a fixed price. During the actual operation, the duration, mileage, traffic jams and other conditions will change and may be different from the estimates. In addition, the freight price of "fixed price" is also relatively low. Especially in non-first-tier cities, low unit prices result in relatively low driver incomes, so drivers have stronger resistance.
Since this year, regulatory agencies in various regions have successively issued notices to promote the standardized management of "fixed price" orders.
On November 19, the Chongqing Municipal Transportation Commission and multiple departments held a deployment meeting for the city's online ride-hailing platform to operate in compliance with laws and regulations. The meeting required that all platform companies that newly add low-price promotions such as "fixed price" and "special discount orders" should report to the transportation and market supervision departments, and all types of price deception and malicious price reduction behaviors are strictly prohibited. Immediately clean up existing low-price promotions such as "fixed price" and "special discount orders" that have been implemented, and operations at prices below cost must not disrupt the normal market order.
In August, the Xi'an Municipal Transportation Bureau issued a notice to standardize the operating pricing behavior of online ride-hailing platforms, mentioning that low-price marketing activities such as "fixed price" and "special discount orders" will be completely suspended, and any form of price fraud and malicious price reduction will be strictly prohibited.
In July, Ningbo held a symposium on online ride-hailing platforms, requiring all platforms to strictly abide by relevant laws, regulations and industry self-discipline regulations, eliminate malicious and disorderly low-price competition, and jointly create a fair competitive market.
Wang Lin said that taking Ningbo as an example, after the symposium was held in July, the local online car-hailing market gradually eliminated the "fixed price" option. This move has also slightly increased local online ride-hailing prices.
Chen Liteng, a life services e-commerce analyst at the e-commerce research center of NetEase, told China Business News that many places have issued notices regulating the operating pricing behavior of online ride-hailing platforms and suspended the "fixed price" model, mainly out of various prudent considerations. From the perspective of protecting drivers' rights and interests, regulatory authorities have received a large number of complaints from online ride-hailing drivers, reflecting the dilemma of "more work but less reward" caused by "fixed price" and "special discount orders". These low-price orders are often only enough to cover basic driving costs, making it difficult for drivers to obtain reasonable returns. From the perspective of maintaining market order, Xi'an city documents clearly point out that such low-price marketing behavior "seriously disrupts the normal operating order of the taxi market and undermines the fair competition environment." What is even more alarming is the overall decline in service quality. These circumstances indicate that pure price competition has posed risks to the healthy development of the industry.
The problem of unit price decline needs to be solved
The controversy caused by the "fixed price" on the driver's side is related to the fact that drivers feel the unit price has declined.
Master Liang, an online ride-hailing driver in Guangdong, told China Business News that in actual comparison, the price of a "fixed price" order is lower than that of an express car for the same distance.
Master Liang said that based on his experience in taking orders, the price of a 20-kilometer drive under the "fixed price" mode is around 23 yuan during peak periods, around 24 yuan during peak periods, and can reach 28 yuan in the early morning. The price is around 30 yuan in express mode, 34 yuan during peak hours, and nearly 40 yuan in the early morning. Master Liang believes that the "fixed price" pricing is close to 1 km/1 yuan.
On the other hand, Master Liang believes that the fixed-price model is unreasonable. “Some drivers take orders for a few dollars and are stuck in traffic for an hour or two.” This is very unreasonable under such circumstances. At the same time, Master Liang will also take "fixed price" orders when there are few express train orders. The reason is that there are more "fixed price" orders. "From the perspective of empathy, who doesn't want to take a cheap ride."
In Wang Lin’s view, the price decline of online ride-hailing is mainly affected by four factors. First, the online ride-hailing industry has changed from an incremental market to a stock market. The 56th "Statistical Report on China's Internet Development Status" shows that as of June 2025, the number of online ride-hailing users in my country reached 511 million, an increase of 1.7% from 503 million in the same period in 2024.
Second, transportation capacity continues to grow. In the past two years, the online ride-hailing transportation capacity market has gradually become saturated, and many places have issued warnings of capacity saturation. According to the operation status and risk warning of Taiyuan City's online taxi booking industry in the first half of 2025, the average daily order volume of bicycles in Taiyuan City in the first half of the year was less than 12, and the empty driving rate reached 53%.
Third, the overflow of capacity has changed the platform policy. In the past, platforms had to compete for drivers through subsidies. With the increase of drivers and many platforms accessing third-party transportation capacity, transportation capacity has gradually become sufficient. Therefore, the platform has gradually stopped providing subsidies, and the subsidies and incentives for drivers have become less and less.
Fourth, there are gray areas in the industry. For example, preferential prices launched by platforms for enterprise users will be used by third parties to provide services to individual users, thus lowering prices in disguise.
Chen Liteng believes that the intensifying low-price competition in the online ride-hailing industry is rooted in the superposition of multiple factors. Homogeneous competition between platforms is the primary factor. In the context of limited market growth space, price has become the most direct means of competition. The algorithm and rule design of the platform further strengthens this trend.
Compared with canceling the "fixed price", Master Liang hopes that the platform will set prices more reasonably.
From a market perspective, Chen Liteng believes that canceling the "fixed price" may increase travel costs and reduce platform orders in the short term, but in the long run it will help guide the industry from "price war" to "service quality competition." To truly alleviate low-price competition, a multi-pronged approach is needed: building a transparent and rational pricing and commission mechanism so that platform charges are clearly aligned with the navigation, insurance and other services it provides; encouraging platforms to innovate through intelligent dispatch, ride-sharing optimization and scenario-based services; reasonably controlling the scale of the industry to avoid disorderly expansion; optimizing the regulatory system and shifting from simple "two certificate management" to focusing on driver career development and long-term rights and interests protection.