CheTuoBang, Leading a New Era of Intelligent Driving

    CheTuoBang, dedicated to delivering the best driving experience for vehicle owners, held the launch event for its festive version of the app in Beijing on January 30. Leveraging a "navigation + social" model and world-class intelligent transportation research capabilities, CheTuoBang enhances travel intelligence for drivers through mobile internet.

    The festive edition of the CheTuoBang app, launched on the day of the event, introduced a Spring Festival red envelope task system. From February 12 to February 28, drivers who open the CheTuoBang app will receive tasks to “take photos and report road conditions” based on traffic flow at their location. Upon receiving a task notification, users can complete the photo submission to earn red envelope rewards. Sharing the activity on social media can generate bonus red envelopes for friends. These red envelopes can be accumulated in the app’s marketplace to redeem car-related services such as car washing, maintenance, and repairs. CheTuoBang has prepared car services worth two hundred million yuan for this campaign. During the event period, new users downloading the festive edition of the CheTuoBang app can also receive red envelopes.

    This rewarding campaign brings delight to drivers traveling during the Spring Festival. As is widely known, the Spring Festival travel rush is regarded as the largest periodic human migration in history. During this period, the total highway exit traffic volume across the country is expected to reach hundreds of millions of trips. For those driving home, how can highway congestion be alleviated and the journey made smoother? According to a survey initiated by the WeChat public account WeixinLukuang (weixinlukuang) in early January, 96% of respondents were willing to report road conditions during the Spring Festival to help fellow drivers. In response, CheTuoBang launched the special campaign “The Spring Festival Journey is All About Joy,” using gamified and community-driven methods to encourage users to take photos and report road conditions. As the first internet company to provide highway image-based road condition updates, CheTuoBang promotes user-generated content (UGC) road condition reporting and applies social route calculation methods, striving to improve highway efficiency during the Spring Festival and making the journey home a joyful one. In terms of both audience scale and the volume of image-based road condition data, CheTuoBang leads the industry.

    Building upon core functions such as map navigation, road condition inquiry and reporting, violation checks, real-time traffic avoidance, and user-shared routes, the festive edition of the CheTuoBang app innovatively introduces new community features like a driving chat room and car enthusiast clubs, significantly boosting user engagement. Through these chat rooms and clubs, drivers can share real-time road conditions and driving tips, creating a collaborative support network. CheTuoBang has innovatively transformed traditional offline asking-for-directions methods and radio-based traffic updates into mobile internet experiences.

    To further enhance the user experience, a driver service platform was also launched alongside the app. Utilizing the advantages of the platform and brand, it offers high-value after-market automotive services. The redesigned interface also provides a more enjoyable sensory experience for drivers.

    Corresponding to the app, the web-based product “Highway Live View (gaosu.chetuobang.com)” was also launched on the day of the event. As the Spring Festival approaches, users can check real-time highway conditions for self-driving trips. Live images of highways contributed by other drivers offer a more vivid representation of current traffic conditions along their travel routes.

    Currently, CheTuoBang covers over 350 cities nationwide, with a cumulative user base of 25 million. On CheTuoBang, millions of drivers continuously contribute data to help alleviate congestion for fellow travelers, collectively achieving more efficient travel and a better driving life.

    Smog, traffic congestion, and travel difficulties are unavoidable issues in metropolitan life. However, entrepreneurs dedicated to “smart transportation” are seeking better solutions to address these problems and transform these urban drawbacks into aspects of the past. After more than three years of development, CheTuoBang has built its navigation, social, and road condition features with a deep focus on user experience, transcending the purely tool-oriented positioning of similar products to become the largest mobile community for drivers.

    The CheTuoBang team, focused on product development and technological advancement, benefits from the strong support of world-class academic experts. In 2014, Ms. Qu Tongbin, with 24 years of experience in transportation research and known in academia as the “Goddess of Road Conditions” (holding a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from Texas A&M University and having studied under Dr. Timothy Lomax, known as the “Father of U.S. Congestion Research”), officially joined CheTuoBang as the Chief Scientist of the Smart Transportation Research Institute. In January 2015, Professor Yang Xiaoguang, Director of the Engineering Discipline at Tongji University's Traffic College, also became the Chief Advisor of the CheTuoBang Smart Transportation Research Institute. The establishment of the institute has received support from renowned institutions including Tongji University and Beijing University of Technology. The CheTuoBang Smart Transportation Research Institute will focus on developing traffic information services and intelligent navigation-related products, aiming to reshape global traffic conditions over the next decade.

    By leveraging an innovative UGC model for big data collection, analysis, and prediction, CheTuoBang has shifted the traditional industry’s “data-centric” approach to a mobile internet “user-centric” model, completely transforming the purely “tool” nature of the product. This “user-centric” application also helped solve real-world issues for Zhejiang Voice’s XinRui 988 program, whose real-time traffic updates are powered by technical support from CheTuoBang’s Capability Center.

    With an open and collaborative mindset, the Capability Center looks forward to working with more partner organizations. From map display to route recommendations, it actively welcomes collaboration. CheTuoBang will also open its independently developed map navigation engine SDK. Compared to generic map SDKs, the CheTuoBang Capability Center hopes to co-explore and deeply analyze user needs with partners, more accurately identify pain points, and provide customized solutions.

    Although it was a product launch event for the festive edition of the app, the atmosphere was filled with a futuristic vibe. Whether through special effects in short videos or scene design, attendees felt as though they had stepped into a new era of future mobility. In the speech by Guan Heng, General Manager of CheTuoBang’s Automotive Division, the initial vision of CheTuoBang’s CarOS strategy was revealed. Guan mentioned that with the full integration of artificial intelligence technology and the automotive industry, the sector is bound to welcome a new ecosystem. CheTuoBang’s pioneering CarOS can be understood as an interface to a smart mobility cloud brain. In the near future, CarOS will not only control the physical aspects of vehicles using local sensor computing but will also manage and direct traffic flow based on traffic big data mining, maximizing road usage efficiency. Focusing on the driving scenario, CheTuoBang meets diverse user needs for safety, comfort, efficiency, and convenience. It is exploring O2O service platforms, opening up possibilities for more comprehensive and open models of collaboration.