Kakao T Announces No Discrimination Based on Franchise Status or Distance in Dispatch Algorithm Verification Results

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] It has been confirmed that there is no discriminatory logic in the KakaoT Taxi dispatch algorithm based on franchise or direct management, or call distance. This is the result of analyzing over 1.7 billion taxi call data over the past six months by the ‘Mobility Transparency Committee,’ composed of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and transportation experts.

On the 6th, the committee held a press conference and stated, "After reviewing the taxi dispatch logic and source code, no logic discriminating between directly managed and franchise taxis was found," and "After analyzing 1.7 billion cases of unannounced operational server verifications and call dispatch histories, it was also confirmed that the service operates according to the source code verified by the committee."

The difference in dispatch acceptance rates between regular drivers, who can see destination information, and franchise drivers, who are automatically dispatched without destination information, was dismissed as merely a difference in the selective call acceptance behavior of regular drivers. The committee explained, "The reason the acceptance rate of regular drivers is lower than that of franchise drivers can be interpreted by various factors, and regular drivers inevitably have a higher degree of freedom of choice compared to franchise drivers," adding, "It is difficult to interpret this issue of ‘driver freedom of choice’ as discrimination."

The committee concluded that there is no discriminatory logic based on business distance between franchise and regular drivers according to passenger call distances. Analysis of performance data showed that there is a variance in acceptance rates compared to call card dispatch between franchise and regular driver groups, which is judged to be the result of selective picking due to the automatic dispatch without destination display and the selective dispatch system with destination display.

The committee plans to analyze performance data in cases where supply exceeds demand and where demand exceeds supply in the future. In particular, they will analyze by time and region cases where acceptance rates may affect call card reception opportunities to examine whether there are improvements to be made in the data processing process. They also plan to gather opinions from various sectors on securing the public nature of the call service and propose directions for improving the Kakao T Taxi service.

Chairman Kim Hyun said, "Going forward, we intend to gather opinions from passengers, franchise drivers, transportation operators, academia, and government to suggest a desirable dispatch direction where passengers, drivers, and Kakao Mobility can all win together."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.