Didi Mobile Shared Toilet
The concept of 'Didi Mobile Shared Toilet' is currently more of an idea and has not yet become a widely adopted real-world service model, but there are various related ideas and extended considerations.
Early Idea: 'Didi Defecation' Shared Home Toilet Plan
On March 12, 2015, Yang Zhenkai first proposed this shared economy concept in an online article, aiming to address the shortage of public toilet resources. The idea was to develop an app where, when users had a need, they could open the app and press 'I Need to Defecate', sending a request to nearby residential areas and office buildings, with residents responding to the requests. Residents could offer different types of toilets, such as sit-down or squat-style, with varying prices. After use, users would pay and could also rate aspects such as the availability of toilet paper, Wi-Fi, and whether a cat sat on their lap during defecation. However, this idea has largely remained at the conceptual level and has not been implemented on a large scale.
New Shared Toilet Service Model
This model is similar to Didi Chuxing (a ride-hailing service). Users select a nearby toilet on a mobile app and send a call request, and the system assigns the nearest toilet. After the toilet arrives, users pay for its use through scanning a code or other payment methods. After use, the system automatically calculates the fee and sends a bill, which the user pays upon receipt. These toilets are stylish in appearance, well-equipped, and use intelligent management systems that can automatically record usage time, fees, and other information, as well as monitor usage and cleanliness in real-time. They help solve the embarrassing problem of finding a toilet when out and about, improve urban public hygiene standards, reduce financial pressure on users, and minimize uncivilized behavior. However, their promotion and application face numerous challenges, such as ensuring timely response to avoid long user wait times, maintaining cleanliness and hygiene to provide a good user experience, and preventing malicious damage to ensure the normal operation of toilet facilities.
Extended Considerations on Toilet-Related Issues in Ride-Hailing Services
Taking Didi Chuxing as an example, there have been cases where female passengers defecated in the car without removing their pants, and the driver did not report it to the police on the spot, making it difficult to locate the passenger afterward. This extends to self-driving cars, where, due to the lack of management, passengers may use the car as a temporary toilet when they urgently need to go or are too lazy to find a toilet, leading to an accumulation of odors in the car and affecting operations. This reflects the problems that shared transportation tools face in dealing with special situations such as passengers' urgent needs to defecate.
