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From: "NYTimes.com"

Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:01:21 -0400



Subject: Personal Tech: Taxi Tidbits and Techno-Tales

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September 17, 2009

Personal Tech




Taxi Tidbits and Techno-Tales



By DAVID POGUE



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.



In the 1970's, New York made a deal with the taxi drivers and the

"black car" drivers. The rule: Black cars aren't allowed to pick up

passengers spontaneously hailing on the street; those people are for

the yellow cabs only. On the other hand, in New York, you can't call

ahead for a yellow cab; that would eat into the black cars' business.



There are, in fact, smartphone apps that let you summon a cab to your

position, like TaxiMagic for the iPhone. But they can't call cabs in

New York. Why? Because summoning a taxi like this is against the law.

That's not hailing; it's prearrangement, and that's the domain of the

black cars.



I don't know. If I were the taxi union, I'd argue that the definition

of "hailing" has to change with the times. Surely sending out an "I'm

here! Come pick me up" signal, by Taxi Magic, text message or

whatever, is little more than a modern-day version of sticking your

arm out at the curb.



* Know what over 50 percent of the consumer calls to the TLC are

about? Want to guess? Anybody? Anybody?



Things left behind in taxis.



Allan Fromberg, deputy commissioner for public affairs at the TLC,

told me that *stringed instruments* make up a bizarrely

disproportionate number of the things people leave in cabs. Violins,

violas, and cellos. "Nobody knows why," he told me. "It's a Bermuda

Triangle thing."



I could not stop grinning when he told me what he had planned for the

third day of the conference, yesterday: a concert performed entirely

by musicians using the instruments they'd left in taxis--and later

recovered.



* One of my Twitter respondents asked for a return of the celebrity

recordings that, for six years in the 90's, greeted everyone who

entered a NYC taxi and urged them to buckle up. Danny DeVito, Eartha

Kitt, Elmo--there were 38 different celebrity recordings in all.



"How come you discontinued that?" I asked Mr. Fromberg.



"Because people hated it," he said with a hint of disappointment.



* You can't believe how much behind-the-scenes lobbying and regulating

goes on in the NYC taxi business: safety, anti-corruption policies,

work rules, and on and on. You have to get your car inspected every

four months. Windows can't be more than 70 percent tinted. And so on.



For example, dispatchers can send messages to the screens of

individual taxis. But they don't show up until the car is going 0

miles an hour. To prevent distraction, they pile up until the car is

stopped. (Emergency messages can blast past this limitation.)



* Taxi drivers aren't allowed to drive more than 12 hours a day. In

this economy, nobody's putting much energy into enforcing that

particular rule. But it's interesting to note that, if necessary, the

fleet operators can turn off a taxi's meter remotely--or even, in some

systems, the engine as well.



Wild, huh?



Anyway, as you can tell, the air was full of interesting taxi tidbits

and techno-tales; I'm sure there's enough more to fill a book.



In the meantime, I'll look forward to the day Wi-Fi comes to the

already tricked-out techno-cabs of New York City.



Visit David Pogue on the Web at DavidPogue.com »

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