When DiDi Is Not Really A Choice in Small Chinese Cities, Taxi Drivers Build Their Own

"Sharing economy" platforms have become increasingly popular, providing people with cost-effective choices and service providers a chance to make a profit. Among these platforms, ride-sharing services such as Uber reshape people’s daily mobility experiences. However, these highly-functional platforms do not always provide effective mobility solutions due to social, economic, and technical restrictions. In low resource and rural areas, drivers in these areas often have to build their own ride-sharing systems to satisfy their needs. We present a qualitative study employing both participant observation and semi-structured interview techniques to document the barriers for DiDi, a dominant Chinese ride-sharing platform, to solve the mobility problem between small cities and nearby larger hubs. We further describe a simple, non-algorithmic ride-sharing solution developed by taxi drivers in a small county-level Chinese city (Chiping, Shandong Province). This solution provides low cost, highly-effective mobility services from the small city to the province's capital city (Jinan). Users' perceptions and concerns of such a system are also discussed. Our work contributes to the CSCW literature on effective ride-sharing innovations built by people in low resource and rural areas, as well as to a broader understanding of computing beyond major cities' urban centers.