Didi is temporarily stopping late-night services

Photograph: courtesy Didi

Service will be suspended between 11pm and 5am from this Saturday

Ride-sharing and taxi-booking app Didi Chuxing announced yesterday that it will be suspending services between 11pm to 5am, from Saturday 8 to Saturday 15, according to China Daily.

The announcement comes after two widely covered cases of rape and murder of Didi passengers occurred in the last three months. Since then, the company has been under heavy scrutiny for its safety measures and driver vetting procedures.

Didi said it will not 'shirk from responsibility', in a statement according to SCMP.

The widely popular app has pushed to introduce a new 'safety centre' app menu with a one-touch police-calling function; no word on whether the safety feature rollout will include the video and audio recording safety feature they've been testing. Didi also has plans to increase customer service personnel from the current 5,000 to 8,000 in order to handle the 2.12 million customer calls it receives daily.

All this sounds promising, but we're sure you're wondering, 'how will I get a cab at 3am this weekend from Sanlitun?' Don't panic: Meituan Dache is still available, as is the old-school way of hailing a cab on the side of the street – form an orderly queue. 

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