Taxi-hailing app introduces 'pandemic map'

"Shencheng Travel," Shanghai's taxi-hailing smartphone app, has introduced a new map feature that shows the COVID-19 pandemic status of different locations in the city.

The map shows whether there were confirmed coronavirus cases in residential complexes or business sites in the past seven or 14 days at and around the starting point and the destination of a taxi trip to be booked.

The feature, however, is not available on the app's WeChat version.

The data are from the city's health commission and the government news outlet "Shanghai Fabu," the operator of the app said.

The app is the only third-party taxi-hailing platform that has been working in six suburban districts of Shanghai since May 16 .

The app operator noted that the number of available taxi drivers in the city has been growing, with taxi-hailing requests from the public rising too, albeit slowly.