Only half of the taxi requests placed by a 24-hour online platform were successful, Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

The platform, designed by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, started operations on Saturday.

From Saturday to Monday, it received 7,594 taxi requests.

Of these, 3,707 were successful, the report said.

The platform can receive requests by calls, mobile phone software and websites, and passes on information to taxi drivers.

Taxi drivers who "dump" requests will be punished, said the report.

In addition, the authority said an official app will appeared at the end of June.