Uber打車軟件遭遇北京堵車難題
Uber formally launched its ride-summoning smartphone app in Beijing this week. But the Chinese capital has presented the U.S. car service company with a vexing problem: how to handle the city's bumper-to-bumper traffic.
美國汽車服務公司Uber本週在北京正式推出叫車應用軟件，但卻面臨着如何應對北京堵車的難題。Saying 'Beijing has a traffic problem' is something of an understatement. A 2011 study by UBS showed it to be the worst among a number of Chinese cities it tracked, with average traveling speed time a glacial 12 kilometers per hour. By contrast, traffic in New York goes roughly twice as fast, a fact that would probably shock commuters idling on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. To demonstrate the problem, one media outfit once pit a Porsche against a bicycle in a race across the city's center. (Residents of the city can guess which won.)
說“北京有交通擁堵問題”有點太輕描淡寫了。根據2011年瑞士銀行(UBS)的一項調查，在該行跟蹤的衆多中國城市中，北京的交通擁堵情況最爲嚴重，車輛平均行駛速度只有12公里/小時。相比之下，紐約的車速要比北京快一倍，這可能會讓緩慢行駛在布魯克林-皇后區快速路上的通勤者大感意外。爲了彰顯交通問題的嚴重，某媒體機構還曾搞了一次保時捷與自行車穿越市中心的比賽。（北京市民可以猜一猜誰贏了。）Beijing is the last of what are generally considered China's four tier-one cities that Uber Technologies Inc. has entered. The app -- which in China connects users with drivers via agreements with rental-car fleet operators and driving services -- formally launched in Shanghai in February and has since been launched in the twin southern boomtowns of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
在中國的四個一線城市中，北京是Uber Technologies Inc.最後進入的。這款應用通過與出租車運營商和駕駛服務公司之間的協議把中國用戶與司機聯繫起來，該應用今年2月正式在上海推出，之後又在南方新興城市廣州和深圳推出。
Such cities also have their traffic problems -- and also fared poorly in UBS's traffic study -- but Uber acknowledges Beijing poses a particular problem. In addition to traffic, there's the city's sheer geographic size.
這些城市也面臨交通問題，在瑞銀的交通調查中也屬於擁堵城市。但Uber承認，北京的問題很特別。除了交通擁堵之外，這個城市的超大地理面積也是個問題。'Beijing is a big, complicated city,' said Allen Penn, Uber's head of Asia. He added, 'in short, we can't change the traffic.'
Uber亞洲主管Allen Penn稱，北京是一個巨大的、複雜的城市。他補充說，總而言之，Uber改變不了那裏的交通狀況。Its solution is to , slow. The company, which is in 41 countries, soft-launched its Beijing service about three months ago with a focus just on the tony Sanlitun shopping district. With its official launch, it has added the city's Central Business District. Other rollouts will be gradual, Mr. Penn said. By contrast, when it launched in Shanghai, the app's reach covered broader swaths of that city.
Uber的解決辦法是慢慢來。大約三個月前，這家目前已經進軍41個國家的公司低調推出了在北京的服務，但只重點關注時髦的三里屯購物區。在北京正式發佈後，該公司又將北京的中心商業區囊括在內。Penn稱，將循序漸進添加其他區域。相比之下，該應用軟件在上海推出時覆蓋了更廣闊的範圍。Mr. Penn says Uber is making progress handling the traffic and is using customer data to figure out where to best position cars and drivers. Cars now take an average of about nine minutes to reach Beijing customers, he said, compared with 14 minutes, the average when the company first soft-launched in the city. That figure puts Beijing just behind Shanghai, where customers usually wait about eight minutes for a ride.
Penn稱，Uber在處理交通狀況方面正在取得進步，它目前使用客戶數據來計算出配置汽車和司機的最好位置。他稱，目前北京客戶平均需要花費大約九分鐘才能打到車，而該公司在北京第一次低調推出服務時，客戶平均需要花費14分鐘。這樣一來，北京客戶的打車速度僅稍稍落後於上海，上海客戶通常需要等待大約八分鐘才能打上車。Still, the nine-minute wait puts Beijing well behind New York, where rides are filled in three or four minutes, and Singapore, where it takes seven minutes. Ultimately, Mr. Penn said, Uber wants to whittle Beijing's time down to five minutes.
但九分鐘的等待時間仍遠遠高於紐約，那裏的客戶打車只需要三四分鐘，在新加坡使用該應用軟件打車則需要七分鐘。Penn稱，Uber希望最終將北京客戶的等待時間降至五分鐘。'It's launch day. It's day one,' he said, adding, 'we have a long way to go, clearly.'
他說：“服務纔剛剛推出，今天才是第一天，我們很清楚還有很長的路要走。”
