Taxi executives talking about design: lifting the core algorithm to be a taxi assistant

Tencent Science and Technology Lei Jianping June 25 reported that China's large and medium-sized cities have long been suffering from a taxi: On the one hand, a large number of taxi market demand, many people in the peak period of a car difficult to find, on the other hand, taxis loaded with empty cars in the long road. A huge demand for new applications--tick-tock taxi, shake the car, not only profoundly change the taxi industry, but also sparked a fierce confrontation between new forces and traditional forces. As a new application, tick-tock taxi, shake the car despite the storm in some cities, still quickly in the popularity of taxi drivers, now tick-tock taxi has been with Baidu map, gold map, where to reach cooperation and access to the Internet giant investment. Similar to the shaking of the car, quick to take a taxi has also been financing. Call the car application mode is relatively simple: passengers and drivers to install the same car application, passengers only need to provide the car time, departure and destination and the amount of fare increase, the driver can hear voice broadcast, and then according to the road conditions and their location to determine whether orders. However, how many people know the design principle behind the taxi software? Tick-tock Taxi technology Vice President Zhang recently to Tencent technology revealed that the taxi software is a set of search algorithm, is a dynamic model, according to the location of the taxi seat flexibility adjustment, to determine an order sent to which driver. "Peak time and traffic jams will reduce the distance of orders sent, low peak time or remote areas will increase." Zhang said the reason is that the peak time or traffic congestion section of the time to pick up the cost is very high, 1, 2 kilometers to reach may be 20 minutes. Low peak time period driver is relatively insensitive to empty, tick a taxi can be appropriate to enlarge the response area. Taxi software design must use simple big city congestion to increase a lot of trouble to the residents, Zhang is also one of the victims, Zhang has worked in Baidu, because the family is relatively biased, home often encounter refusing hire. Baidu Building near a number of taxis "live", hoping to load the passengers home. It also made Zhang aware of the huge information gap between taxi drivers and passengers. Passengers want to take a taxi, standing on the roadside waving, information can only be hundreds of meters within the range of no building shielding taxi drivers see, taxi drivers only know passengers to take a taxi, do not know its destination, do not dare to pull live, the only way is to drive past consultation, but may wait for two traffic lights, passengers have left. The rapid popularity of mobile internet, so that through mobile internet to flatten information asymmetry, but also give taxi software opportunities. If you tick a taxi, the passenger only needs to make a request with a smartphone tick a taxi can send this request to the surrounding three kilometers or even a wider range, the driver not only know that there are passengers to call the car, but also know the distance between the passengers, as long as the success of a single robbery, passengers and drivers can be on the phone through the map real-time see each other's position, and Zhang points out that the driver's appeal is to spend the minimum cost to make more money. For the taxi software, the first thing to solve is to reduce the cost of driver use. Tick a taxi. The first thought in product design is that the order must be broadcast to the driver, if the driver is interested in the order, just click oneButton can rob a single, the future grab a single future even buttons do not. In addition, when the driver's 1.0 version has an order, the driver uses an Android phone with several actions: first point the power button to light the screen, then slide the unlock and then grab the order. Beep at the beginning of this year, the introduction of automatic unlock function, to order to automatically light the screen after the lock, the driver if interested in the point of snatching a single, not interested in 15 seconds, the phone screen will automatically lock, reduce the driver operating costs, while improving driving safety. The basic reason for the simple use of product design is that many drivers are older, the first application of the smartphone is to tick a taxi and no other applications have been used. How to let this group of people who do not know the mobile Internet to learn to use the product in the shortest time, and reduce its use of taxi software is the difficulty of the taxi software to solve the hard demand, and drivers generally very busy driving, hand to control the steering wheel, to control the shift, eyes to see the road, it is impossible to use too complex software. The passenger's appeal is the minimum cost to hit the car, now tick-tock taxi brewing further reduce the cost of the passengers to send orders. Zhang said that the previous use of voice orders to operate the process is to open the point tick-tock taxi, and then recorded voice, general voice to record 6 seconds, and then pop-up dialog box, ask to determine, walk for about 8 seconds. Tick-tock Taxi is trying to get the passengers to issue orders for 1 seconds. Need to balance the interests of passengers and drivers tick-tock taxi has a function: Set the countdown 6 seconds to rob a single. Talking about why this design Zhang Bo pointed out that many drivers often first rob a single, and then decide whether to single, the countdown 6 seconds to rob a single advantage is 80% of passengers request has been played, the driver clearly know the exact location of each other, where to go, there will be selective robbery, so that the benefits of the most secure passengers. "We need to balance the interests of drivers and passengers. If you rob a single function completely let go, maybe 70% drivers are listening to grab a single, 30% drivers no matter what order first Rob, then decision-making. That would force the 70% drivers to move closer to the 30%, and if they were to take a taxi to form such an ecosystem, the driver would be dissatisfied and the passenger experience would become worse. "In response to a few kilometres of taxis, Zhang pointed out that the same driver and passenger experience should be balanced." For passengers, the more drivers to hear orders, the greater the probability of receiving a single, the more favorable to themselves, the driver is hoping to close. If the number of kilometers in the design is reduced, the turnover rate of the taxi order will drop, but the driver experience will improve. For tick-tock taxi, according to the city now drivers and passengers are oversupply or demand flexible adjustment indicators. Of course, as a product set up only one year, tick-tock taxi still encounter driver dissatisfaction, a driver said, set a countdown of 6 seconds also can not solve the problem of malicious robbery, in fact, many passengers still in 6 seconds did not clearly express their location and distance, and often the nearest taxi also can not get the most suitable for the job. In addition, tick-tock taxi each month will be a single list of Rob, send a microwave and other small prizes, but also stimulate some drivers malicious rob single. For a long time, we are disappointed. On the core algorithm upgrade requirements Gao Zhangbo Frankly tick a taxi there is insufficient,However, Zhang does not agree that the taxi software does not have the technical threshold of the argument, he pointed out that the day when the size of orders, the technical threshold will be highlighted. Because the driver's channel resources scarce, a driver a day to tick a taxi 10 hours, can hear the order limit is 1000. How to distribute the order rationally to the driver needs to calculate the driver's preference and order matching degree. Tick a taxi must also effectively reduce the driver's mobile phone flow, reduce the consumption of electricity. For the passengers, the most hope to quickly hit the car. This makes the tick-tock taxi must have sufficient vehicle source, and based on large data analysis, the overall distribution of orders to understand enough, the optimal decision to send the order to the driver. "Just like the search experience. When the number of pages is increasing, theoretically the correlation will drop if the core algorithm does not escalate. "Zhang said, tick-tock taxi current order level has not reached the ideal state, the future hope empty rate from 30% to 20% or even reduced to 0. As passengers and drivers use the tick-tock platform more and more, they match the increase in the complexity of the exponentially number. Clicking a taxi requires constant technical effort to solve the algorithm problem. Undoubtedly, the technological improvement has been the direction of tick-tock taxi, tick-tock taxi is also pushing the new version. According to Zhang revealed, tick-tock taxi brewing from the tool into a taxi assistant, the reason is that the tool is cold, no emotion. Assistants can have the element of human concern. Tick-tock CAB structure will also change, the future may also be combined with micro-letter. Now, tick-tock must run. Many taxi companies have become aware of the threat, and have started to launch taxi software, or micro-mail call car public accounts. Tick-tock Taxi's biggest competitor is also developing rapidly. Wang, the CEO of shaking the car has said, shake the car products are also rapidly upgraded, including the driver to use electronic voice broadcast and text presentation of the dual system, rocking recruit car also plans to open at the end of Tianjin, Jinan, Dalian, Chengdu and other 6 cities to recruit car business. Taxi software has a strong regional, such as quick taxi in Hangzhou, the advantages of obvious. In addition, the taxi software only in part of the one or two-line city fiery, in Jinan and other cities are still tepid. A Jinan driver said that he was not short of life, using a taxi software for a period of time after their own initiative to uninstall. This is also the problem that Zhang must face and solve.