Miao Tianye, president of Yunman, said at the 2018 National Truck Driver Festival that yunman’s planned path in the future will be “nobody. No cars. Everywhere.” Unmanned truck this cake is not only coveted by logistics enterprises, even logistics data platform is trying to enter a piece. And will this cake yunman be available?
Unmanned freight is not mature, transport full entry share is not easy
The technology is still in its testing phase, and safety risks remain the biggest obstacle to its development. In terms of the current technology of unmanned, closed environment is the best driving environment, but the scene is too limited, however, it is believed that the main transport line is to match the unmanned driving enclosed environment, so various unmanned tycoons are overweight unmanned cargo, especially ali, jingdong, suning active promoter of this kind of logistics industry. But can driverless freight really be a commercial pioneer in driverless cars?
Think on the bright side, one, policy is good. On April 12, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport jointly formulated a new road test for self-driving cars, the road Test management standards for Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Trial). This means that driverless systems can be collected and optimized through real-world road tests to cope with complex road conditions and accelerate their commercialization.
Second, reduce transport time and improve transport efficiency. Usually the transport journey of trunk transport is long, and the driver also needs to rest in the middle of the journey, so the transport time will be longer, which is very unfavorable for the goods in urgent need or the goods with fresh life. And unmanned freight can reduce transport time, reduce the cost of time, which is good news for the trunk transport industry. It is understood that a section of the general freight delivery time of 5 days, unmanned freight only three days to complete.
While unmanned freight brings benefits, its disadvantages are also obvious. For one thing, the overall cost of unmanned freight has increased. Although the most emphasized point of unmanned driving technology is that it can reduce the cost, but at present unmanned driving technology is not mature and even commercial is not enough, it is too early to expect to reduce the cost with unmanned cars. In addition, the current driverless technology can not be separated from the state of the driver, the main line transportation process still need to be equipped with human, so how to reduce costs.
Second, unmanned freight is not enough to reduce the incidence of traffic accidents. Enterprises involved in the research and development of unmanned freight claim that the single road condition and stable speed of trunk transport can be regarded as the preferred commercial landing scenario of unmanned driving, and can also avoid traffic accidents caused by truck drivers due to fatigue driving, and reduce the loss caused by this, but the fact is not so.
Since the advent of driverless cars, there have been many accidents, even fatal accidents. In March, one of Uber’s self-driving cars collided with a pedestrian crossing a street in Tempe, Ariz., who died after being taken to a hospital.
On the one hand, the speed of motorways is fast and the possibility of accidents is higher than other roads. According to hebei’s traffic management department, the death rate from single accidents on expressways was the highest in the province, at 77 percent, 3.2 times the average of other roads. The death rate of a single accident on primary roads is 30%, the death rate of a single accident on secondary roads is 28%, and the death rate of a single accident on general urban roads is 15%.
On the other hand, the driverless technology is not mature, and the ability to predict and respond to emergencies is not as good as that of human drivers. Therefore, unmanned freight vehicles cannot be separated from human drivers at present. If you can’t reduce the accident rate, if you can’t separate yourself from the driver, how can you reassure lorry drivers? Can not eliminate the driver’s safety concerns even worse, drivers still have to look at the car rather than driving to comfortable. Can not leave the driver of the unmanned truck also how to avoid the driver due to fatigue driving caused by the unfortunate? How to improve the time of transport?
Thus, unmanned freight is still a lot of immature factors, to bring good news to the trunk transport industry is still too early. Therefore, it is not easy for Yunman to get a share of the unmanned freight market at this time. It takes a long time to reserve and invest a lot of human, material and financial resources. Does Yunman have such strength?
Escape from the trunk transport pain point, transport full dilemma
There are many pain points in the trunk transport industry. Yunman is a data platform for trunk transport, but it also fails to avoid the problems. With many problems, whether Yunmanman has the strength to cut into unmanned freight I’m afraid to play a big question mark.
First, profitability is difficult to become a stubborn disease. In 2016, Yunmanman shouted “it is expected to be profitable in 2017”, and in 2017, it shouted “it is expected to be profitable in 2018”. Since its establishment in 2013, Yunmanman has been running in the field of trunk transport scheduling for 5 years, but it has not made a profit yet. There are two main reasons for yunmanman’s difficulty in making profits.
On the one hand, under the slogan of “free forever”, Yunman attracted shippers, car owners and third-party logistics enterprises to enter the platform in the early stage, and its scale has been greatly expanded. However, it has not found a clear profit model and relies on financing. On the other hand, in order to grab market share, Yunman also expands its scale through subsidies, which increases its financial burden.
Secondly, information is asymmetrical, freight price disorderly elephant, catty much. There has been a long history of freight price chaos in the trunk transport industry. The traditional market is monopolized by the middlemen and the middlemen make the freight price remain high.
Although Yunmanman’s model is equivalent to cutting too many middlemen, there is still information asymmetry. And in the peer competition under the price war, resulting in high and low prices, there is no unified standard. Eventually lead to either the shipper complain rate is too high, the driver collects fees in disorder, and even the driver, information release party two-way double charges, or driver information costs too expensive, rate is too low, the shipper any sources of information, and even has talked about good business by releasing doves are not refund information costs, and so on because of the lack of standard price, caused by information asymmetry dejected.
Third, the empty driving rate is reduced behind the interests of the driver damage. In the traditional trunk transport industry, the empty rate reached 37%, while Yunman reduced it to 32% through the platform dispatching system. Have empty trucks been reduced but have drivers really benefited?
It is understood that the drivers in order to reduce the return of no goods to pull the situation, even if the loss of goods will be pulled, the only difference is the return of no goods thanks to goods less deficit. So yunman’s small reduction in empty driving rates is at the driver’s expense.
Intractable profit problems, irregular freight rates, imperfect credit system, etc., hinder Yunman’s great ambitions in the market. Perhaps win the trust of users, regain a good reputation is its way to rekindle.
Rebuilding the moat of credibility may be a good choice
For Yunman, it is more urgent to face up to and solve its own problems and build a reputation moat than to enter the unmanned freight market.
On the one hand, Yunman may want to use technology to strengthen its own strength and enhance the competitiveness of the industry. One to provide mature driverless technology to owners can let owners save labor, save labor costs, reduce the loss caused by car accidents; Second, the platform side can also increase additional income, and strengthen the unified management of entering trucks, improve the vehicle carrying rate.
However, on the other hand, full operation is the light operation mode of no vehicle carrier, which needs both vehicles and goods. In order to obtain long-term stability or even more resources, the interests of each party on the platform must be guaranteed. However, according to many problems existing in Yunmanman, as well as the dissatisfaction of most owners and shippers to the platform, there is still a lot of work to be done by the platform. Reputation is the first step. If the credibility of the platform is gone, who will join the platform? In order to achieve steady and rapid development of the platform side, it can be improved from the following aspects.
First of all, strengthen the construction of credit system, win the trust of users, eliminate bad elements. Audit mechanism, to do strict review, to ensure that each user’s personal information is true and effective, but also to be responsible for the user’s personal information security; In the transaction process, the whole process from negotiation, receipt of orders to completion of orders should be carried out on the platform. The negotiation information, payment information and cargo transportation status can be clearly seen, which is also convenient for evidence retention, effectively preventing potential bad elements and winning the trust of all parties. In the settlement of money, no matter information fee or freight fee, the money is deposited on the platform before the transaction is completed, and then released to the user after the transaction is completed.
Secondly, tap potential value-added services to break the stubborn disease of profitability. Based on the needs of cargo owners, car owners, drivers, information providers and other parties, more reliable third-party service providers will be introduced, such as destination accommodation, service station dining, financial services, truck services, destination tourism, membership services, etc.
Furthermore, standardized freight rates. Disorderly competition will only lead to a vicious cycle, which will also affect the platform to increase revenue. Only by establishing a unified tariff standard can the interests of all parties be protected. We can adjust the charging standard of the next day according to the fluctuation of freight price in the whole freight market, whether it is information fee or freight fee, etc. Only by controlling the freight price in a reasonable range can we make all parties in a benign competition environment.
In a word, reputation and public praise are the cornerstone of the long-term operation and survival of an enterprise. In this era of user experience first, Yunman should face up to its own problems, maintain the interests of all parties, and win the trust of users to have a broader future.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110