Taxi Tidbits and Techno-Tales

: Image by Narisa via Flickr

This week, I had the honor of hosting a most unusual panel. It was at the annual conference of the International Association of Transport Regulators—basically, the governing bodies of taxi systems all over the world—and it was hosted by the New York Taxi & Limousine Commission (the TLC). The panel was about the future of taxi technology.

I’ve always thought that it’s cool to meet the people at the center of huge operations that touch thousands of lives a day. Meeting the people who run the world’s most famous taxi operation—the TLC—is like meeting whoever runs the subway system, or the tax system, or the weather.

I’m obviously not a taxi-industry person. So I did what any sane panel-hoster would do: beforehand, I pinged Twitter for ideas.

A number of the responses addressed one screamingly obvious problem: matching up taxis with people who want them. Until the two parties have a more efficient way to connect (GPS? smartphone app? text message?), both will continue to spend way too much time fruitlessly hunting for each other.

Lots of people want Wi-Fi in the cabs. Lots want GPS on the back-seat screen, so you can monitor the cab’s route and avoid being swindled. There were many hopes for quicker payment methods, too, pay-by-cellphone systems.

In the discussion that followed, and in various chats with TLC staffers, I learned all kinds of interesting things about New York’s taxi system:

* There are 13,000 taxis in New York—and three times as many “black cars” (freelance drivers for hire). The average cab makes 55 trips a day, averaging 14 minutes.

* There’s a good reason why there’s no GPS navigation in cabs: the drivers of New York’s 13,000 taxis despise the idea. It makes them feel monitored, spied on. It’s a toxic hot-button issue for them.

* There’s a good reason why there’s no still no wireless way to let taxi drivers know you want a cab. Or, rather, a bad reason.

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Taxi Tidbits and Techno-Tales

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