"Industry" on the Transformation of Highway Passenger Transport Business

Since 20 14, with the intensification of high-speed rail competition and the rise of mobile internet, the highway passenger transport industry began to fall from the peak and the living space was constantly squeezed. The formation of this situation, on the surface or to some extent, has the influence of external competition, but in essence it is caused by the contradiction between supply and demand in the market. Facing the increasingly fragmented, accurate and personalized travel market, the traditional highway passenger transport system with the station as the core has fallen behind the times, both in form and content.

On the one hand, the emergence of Internet travel mode represented by Didi Chuxing caters to the public's demand for travel service quality, on the other hand, it also highlights the shortcomings and backwardness of the traditional mode. Therefore, the transformation and upgrading of the industry has become a realistic problem in front of highway passenger transport enterprises, and it is urgent.

Since 20 15, both enterprises and competent departments have been actively trying and exploring. In order to untie enterprises, the Ministry of Transport first issued the guiding opinion of "deepening reform and accelerating the transformation and upgrading of road passenger transport", and then revised and re-issued the Regulations on the Management of Road Passenger Transport and Passenger Stations in 20 16 and 2020. The Code for Safety Management of Road Passenger Transport Enterprises has been constantly revised and improved. Little change, policy support is not in place.

For a while, we were all talking about customized services, tourism distribution and diversified development. However, a few years later, how many enterprises have really succeeded in transformation and how many enterprises have really benefited? We are talking about "internet plus", but how many people can explain clearly what road passenger transport in internet plus should be like? Today, the whole road passenger transport industry, not to mention rebounding, even staying at the bottom of the target is the black swan incident-COVID-19 epidemic. It can be said that at present, the research and exploration of transformation and upgrading in the industry, as well as the implementation measures and means are far from successful.

"Breaking" is "breaking", but "standing" is still impossible. All practitioners hate the vicious competition and security risks brought by hitchhiking and black cars, but from the user's point of view, they can only choose between convenience and safety.

What's the problem?

Personally, I think there should be the following points:

First, the mentality problem.

Transformation is not a simple drive to turn, but a process of reshaping the ideological system. In the past, the market structure of regional monopoly, the policy barriers and the right to speak established by years of painstaking efforts have made many transportation enterprises accustomed to the business model of sitting on the ground and waiting for customers. It is very challenging to completely switch to the mode of looking for customers with a low profile, catering to the market and taking the initiative to attack, from attitude adjustment and thinking change to adaptation and implementation, which requires a painful transformation process. At least for now, this process is far from over.

Second, the problem of talent reserve.

Under the current background, whether it is customized passenger transport, online car rental or travel distribution, its essence is no longer the traditional business we are familiar with, but should be included in the Internet ecology. Any transformation and upgrading, leaving the Internet and digital technology, is a reversal of history, which will not be accepted by the market and will not succeed.

But the question is-do our traditional enterprises have Internet talents? Do we have empirical thinking about the operation and promotion of the Internet?

Third, left hand or right hand?

At present, many enterprises in the industry are operated by dual systems of station and fleet. It has always been an effective way to maximize the profits of enterprises by using stations to extract profits from other enterprises and sharing profits with other stations by vehicles. Nowadays, on the one hand, enterprises are worried about long-term losses in the station, but on the other hand, they are reluctant to part with the valuation and operation convenience brought by their fixed assets.

So, there is a problem of left hand and right hand. Do you really have to (or can only) hit your right hand with your left hand? Abandon the station to fully support vehicle customization services? In the face of decades of efforts, hundreds of millions of tangible and intangible assets accumulated by generations over the years may not be easily abandoned after a transformation.

The contradiction between reason and emotion, the difference between goal and habit, and the conflict between persistence and transformation all have a left-handed or right-handed proposition.

Fourth, the restriction of industrial attributes.

In China, highway travel naturally has the attribute of public service, so safety is always the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of all practitioners, and it is also the Achilles heel of industry executives. Different from the political thinking and limited government responsibility system of western capitalist countries such as the United States, China's national conditions and socialist system determine the government's unlimited responsibility for public safety. At this point, the competent authorities can't retreat, and there is nowhere to retreat.

As the center of the current contradiction between supply and demand, passenger station has obvious limitations, but as an important window of industry supervision, it has incomparable advantages. For example, the daily safety inspection of vehicles, the qualification verification of employees, and the investigation of dangerous goods on vehicles. The passenger station has been weakened. Who should replace this part of the passenger station and how? This problem has never been solved perfectly.

The introduction of new customer regulations has loosened enterprises, but it has increased the regulatory burden, bringing ambiguity in implementation and uncertainty in post-event accountability. Therefore, whether it can provide a reliable security guarantee for users and competent departments determines how far and smoothly the road to transformation can go. We should have heard more than once that a city had just started to implement customized passenger transport, but it had to stop completely because of a safety accident.

Fifth, the sorrow of the traffic platform

I have always believed that the road to road passenger transport transformation is so tortuous because in the previous wave of mobile Internet, there were not one or two subversive Internet unicorns like online car rides, partly because the financial capital sector, BAT and other large-flow platforms were not deeply involved. Aren't they interested? No, food, clothing, housing and transportation are just needed. 1000 billion market size, BAT can't be uninterested.

The reason for this is that the industry as a whole is in a downward trend and the prospects are unknown; Second, because road travel can't be the same as other internet services (such as online car service), you can directly win the world with a simple product and business model.

Facing the increasingly fragmented market demand, which means fragmented products, services and operations, the quality assurance of travel services must be at the supply chain level.

So simple link matching is not enough. The deep-seated OTO requires the deep integration of Internet platform and traditional enterprises (offline business) in products and business.

The current situation of highway passenger transport is that the large-flow platform wants to sink but can't stay. Traditional enterprises want to go out but don't know where to open the door. Even what kind of service they provide is good, they can't agree with it, let alone how to connect with this large-flow platform.

Only by finding the problem first can we really find the solution.

(To be continued)