As more and more Chinese use car-hailing apps as a convenient and economical alternative to taxis, private car owners who have signed up with software companies are not only earning a few extra yuan but making friends, too.

"It's not about making money," says Peng Guo, 27, of Beijing, who registered his Mercedes-Benz with the hailing app company Uber as a part-time driver.

"The great thing is that I can get to know different people and have very pleasant chats with them," says Peng, who is in the finance industry.

For part-timers driving for Uber in a car costing more than 250,000 yuan ($40,000), the financial pickings are slim, Peng says, given the running costs and the wear and tear on vehicles.

Many of his passengers are young postgraduates, teachers and office workers, and they talk about many different things, he says. Peng is a keen art collector, and he says one of his rides was a journalist who writes about art, and she was able to offer him a few handy pointers.

"Being an Uber driver has also turned me into a more patient person. With Uber you can't pick and choose your fares, and sometimes you have to drive a long way to pick someone up. What I like about it is that we have to be professional and responsible and do our job well."

He got a buzz in taking his first order from the app a few months ago, he says, partly because it gave him a sudden sense of responsibility.

For other car-hailing drivers, meeting people is a satisfying part of the job, too, although for them the financial returns are not to be sneezed at either.

Yuan Ding, 34, of Beijing, says that in December he earned 5,000 yuan within 10 days as a part-time driver registered with Uber. At the time, car-hailing apps companies were offering premiums in an effort to attract more drivers and passengers, and that trick seemed to work on Yuan, who immediately quit his job selling cars to drive them instead.

"What I like about the job is that it gives me flexibility with work. I am making much more money than I used to, and am not as tired. And of course, I can meet lots of different people and broaden my horizons.

"Passengers come from all walks of life, including business people, government officials and doctors. Sometimes a passenger will be someone you can do things together with or who can give you tips on various things, for example starting your own business."

Yuan says he draws on his experience as a car salesman to dispense advice on anything to do with cars to passengers.

A relationship between a car-hailing app driver and a passenger is a little more intimate than that between a taxi driver and a passenger, he says, in that the car-hailing app drivers will have the mobile phone numbers of their customers and can contact them immediately if, for example, they leave personal belongings in a car.

"The service does not stop just because you have got out of the car. Some apps even have chauffeur service, and we offer bottled water, electrical charging and tissues."

His decision to drive fulltime was based on pure economics: if he drives part-time, he says, he will make less money, and fears of government curbs on car-hailing apps is a constant worry. As the number of app-using passengers grows and more rules are imposed, the software companies have become less generous with their payments, so the financial returns are much less attractive, he says.

"The market for car-hailing apps in Beijing is a bit chaotic. The threshold to become a driver is getting lower and lower. Some drivers even cheat by taking fake orders to get bonuses. and that is unfair to the honest ones. There is no doubt that car-hailing is a good thing, but the market does need to be regulated."

Recently, eight government departments in Beijing, including those responsible for transport, industry and commerce, met officials of Uber and Didi Kuaidi, the companies that own the two most used car hailing apps in the country, and read them the riot act, saying them of being involved in unauthorized business practices, tax irregularities and sending spam messages.

Company officials are understood to have expressed their willingness to work with the authorities and to regulate their businesses.

Several weeks ago Shanghai cracked down on unlicensed ride services offered through car-hailing apps. Drivers caught faced fines up to 10,000 yuan ($1,600) and their driver's license being confiscated for up to six months. The company that the drivers signed up with were liable to fines up to 100,000 yuan.

Since November, legal authorities in Shanghai say they have caught 199 car drivers conducting unlicensed operations with car-hailing apps including Didi Kuaidi and Uber.

The Beijing Municipal Transport Law Enforcement General Team says that this year 1,211 drivers have been caught using Didi Kuaidi to conduct unlicensed activities, and 170 drivers have been caught using Uber to do the same thing.

Yu Guofu, a partner with Beijing Shengfeng Law firm, says taxi-hailing apps make it easier to call taxis and do not breach any laws, regulations or policies. However, questions over the legality of car-hailing apps are murky.

Chinese law provides for an administrative penalty for unlicensed ride services, Yu says. But most of these laws and regulations apply to an old-style planned economy and are ill-suited to developing rules on a passenger transport market in a modern society, he says.

Yu says the number of taxis in Beijing has failed to rise as the population has risen, so supply cannot meet demand. That breach has been filled by the cars one can call on apps, a method that also counteracts the price gouging that customers and potential customers can encounter with so-called illegal black taxis, he says.

"If something like this promotes social progress, growth of the industry and is in the public interest, we need to legalize it rather than sticking to old ways of thinking."

Chen Yanyan, vice-president of the School of Metropolitan Transport at Beijing University of Technology, says: "Big cities rely on public transport such as subway and buses, but they are not meeting people's expectations. There is a demand for car hailing, but it really ought to supplement other ways of getting about.

"The car-hailing apps market does need to be regulated. They are giving taxis the incentive to offer better service, but there are legitimate concerns about unfair competition and safety."

At the moment, car-hailing app companies, in a fierce battle to gain market share, are splashing out huge sums of money that are in effect subsidies, she says. In addition, private car owners are not professional drivers, and the service life of private cars and taxis are different.

Chen suggests public transport be improved by being more flexible in the services that are offered. One example is small, comfortable buses with air-conditioning and free WiFi for anyone willing to pay a premium for the service.

Yu, the lawyer, advises passengers using car-hailing apps to keep documentation of their trips, including receipts, as a legal safeguard.