Rapid Development of a Free Medical Ride‑Hailing Service by Amap During the COVID‑19 Outbreak

During the COVID‑19 pandemic, many medical staff in Wuhan faced severe difficulties commuting because public transportation was suspended. Amap engineers and business partners, moved by the situation, decided to create a free ride‑hailing tool specifically for medical personnel.

The solution was built in collaboration with a local partner and involved a volunteer‑driver recruitment campaign. The service, called “Medical‑Staff Ride”, was integrated into the Amap Map app under the “Taxi” page and was limited to the Wuhan region.

Project initiation began on January 27 with feasibility discussions and resource preparation. By January 28 the project was officially approved and a special development team of about ten members was formed, covering backend, frontend, testing, and business operations.

The backend was led by senior technical expert Zong Benling, implementing real‑time orders, reservation orders, SMS reminders, risk control, push notifications, carrier configuration, and whitelist management. The frontend was led by senior wireless development expert He Yi, responsible for the UI entry, capacity display, user prompts, order adaptation, and related dialogs.

From project kickoff (backend Jan 28, frontend Jan 30) to the first release on February 1, only three days elapsed, with just over one day of actual coding. Normally such a feature would require more than a week.

Because of the tight schedule, the team split tasks, kept a night‑time testing window, and coordinated via DingTalk and video conferences. Despite remote work, they achieved high collaboration efficiency, handling issues within hours.

After the initial launch, medical staff gave positive feedback and requested a reservation function. The team evaluated the requirement and released the reservation feature the next day.

The rapid delivery was possible thanks to prior architectural improvements in Amap’s backend (real‑time, reservation, airport‑transfer scenarios) and frontend (cross‑platform framework upgrades). These foundations allowed the “Medical‑Staff Ride” to be built quickly and scaled across multiple versions released daily from February 1 to February 5.

Team members shared personal stories of working late nights, balancing family responsibilities, and feeling proud when the service was featured on CCTV. The case illustrates how strong R&D management, cross‑functional collaboration, and existing technical debt reduction can enable ultra‑fast product delivery in emergency situations.