World Taxi Cabs News
Binghamton taxi service finds it easy being green
07/02/2011 - http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20110206/NEWS01/102060357/-1/
BINGHAMTON -- When Robert J. Pornbeck looks at the four newest additions to his taxicab fleet, he sees green.
There's no doubt his Toyota Prius hybrids are good for the environment -- with clean emissions compared to most other vehicles on the road.
It goes deeper than that, though. Pornbeck also sees "green" as in the color of money.
The owner of A-1 Courtesy Cab Inc. in Binghamton says his drivers will save 5,500 gallons of gas annually per car. At today's pump prices, that's about $18,000 per year in fuel savings -- per car.
"It's been a good move for us," Pornbeck said. "When you look at how much gas is and how much you save, it just makes sense."
Then there's this money saving benefit: Broome County charges a $300 annual fee to register gas-powered vehicles as taxicabs, but only $100 to register hybrids.
When Hornbeck switched to Prisues about a month ago, it didn't come as a big surprise to Christopher Marion, the former legislative assistant to the Broome County legislature, who wrote the taxicab legislation last year.
Broome County took over regulating the local taxicab industry in July from Binghamton and the villages of Johnson City and Endicott. Marion said a few legislators and taxicab owners were skeptical about the incentive for taxicab owners to switch to hybrids.
"When we were writing the legislation, one of our concerns was the older taxicabs," Marion said. "We thought this would have two benefits: it would entice owners to purchase "greener" vehicles, and it would get older vehicles off the road. Obviously there's been a real push for greener vehicles."
Both Broome County and the City of Binghamton have been part of the push.
Broome has invested in hybrids for its transit fleet; Binghamton in hybrids for police and other city vehicles. Broome County Executive Barbara J. Fiala drives a Prius.
Initially skeptical about the county regulation of taxicabs and the "green" incentive, Pornbeck has joined the ranks of the converted.
He likes his four 2005 Toyota Prius hybrids so much he's in the market to buy two more, despite the fact they cost at least twice as much as other used vehicles Pornbeck has purchased for his fleet.
Typically, Pornbeck's green machines get a combined 46 mpg (city/highway). Compare that to another typical subcompact which gets 26 mpg in the city; 34 mpg on the highway, according to fuel economy statistics compiled by the federal government.
While Prius appears to be a small subcompact, the vehicles are roomier than they look, Pornbeck said, saying they are comparable in size to the much larger Chevrolet Caprice. Additionally, most Priuses have a global positioning system, which helps taxicab drivers to navigate the streets.
Pornbeck has also noticed the "Prius" effect, a cachet attached to the vehicle that conveys progressive and upscale. Locally, Binghamton University students in search of a taxicab often will opt for a Prius over other vehicles in a lineup, Pornbeck said.
Marion says he isn't surprised by a local preference for Prius as a taxicab.
"When you think about it, our taxis and taxicab drivers are ambassadors to our community at the airport and on the street," Marion said. "I think that says something about our overall commitment here to the greener lifestyle. That's something to be excited about."
Wheelchair taxi seeks government aid.
08/02/2011 - http://ca.news.yahoo.com/wheelchair-taxi-seeks-government-aid-20110208-024233-227.html
A Summerside taxi owner is looking for government money to support his 24-hour wheelchair van service, but another operator says that shouldn't be necessary.
David Bradshaw already owns one wheelchair van, but he told CBC News Monday he needs more money to keep up with repairs and buy another one. He's looking for between $30,000 and $40,000 from the city and the P.E.I. government. He said if he doesn't get the money, he might have to shut down.
"I've always wanted to provide the service. Just the stories that you hear: the thanks, the gratitude," said Bradshaw.
"It's hard for me right now because I'm sitting on the edge. Like, a lot of my Facebook comments are, 'Please God, just let me keep this van going,' because to go around telling people tomorrow, 'Oh, we pulled it,' it's going to be heartbreaking."
But another local business says it offers the same service with no financial help. Donna's Transport Limited has been offering wheelchair van service in Summerside for 30 years.
"We've never received one penny in the way of grants or subsidizes. It's all been done by Donna basically, before we took it over, and we're doing the same thing," said company owner Rodney Savidant.
"If we require a new van, we have to buy it. If you can't run your business, by yourself, you shouldn't be in business."
But Bradshaw said his service is different from Donna's Transport. He offers 24-hour service while Donna's is only open weekdays. Donna's Transport has expanded service in the past, but found there wasn't enough call for it.
Bradshaw is waiting to hear if anyone will provide him with the funding he is asking for.
Paris cabbie returns lost bag to Pendleton couple.
20/01/2011 - http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20110120/UPDATE/110120029/1001
PENDLETON — One act of kindness can travel across an entire ocean and warm the hearts of strangers. A little black bag lost in a Paris taxicab and its six-week journey to its owner in Pendleton illustrates the strength of one honest man and a single good deed.
Richard and Marilyn Smiley traveled to France in late November. On their first morning in Paris, the Pendleton couple walked a few blocks from their hotel and hailed a cab.
Climbing in, Marilyn set her black daypack on the seat beside her. The nylon bag contained a Canon camera, sunglasses, notebook, lip gloss, gloves and a copy of Rick Steves’ “Paris 2011.”
Outside their window, wind blustered and the temperature hovered just above freezing. The cabbie stayed quiet during most of the trip, speaking just a few words of broken English.
The driver was one of more than 15,500 cabbies who cruise the city each day. Most own their own vehicles and operate their businesses from home. Though cabs come in all makes and models, they all carry identical light bars, marked with “Taxi Parisiens,” that light up when the cab is available.
Their driver stopped his white van near the hotel where Richard would serve as one of the moderators at an international pest-control conference. Richard, a plant pathologist at the Oregon State University Columbia Basin Ag Research Center, handed the cabbie a 20 Euro note and waited as the man hunted for exact change, since he wouldn’t take a tip.
Meanwhile, cabs piled up behind them and other drivers started getting impatient. Honking ensued. The couple took the change and hurriedly slipped out of the cab, not asking for a receipt.
Afterwards, with a jolt, Marilyn realized that she had left her bag in the taxi. With sinking heart, she realized the driver wouldn’t know their names or maybe even which passengers had left the bag.
They mentioned the incident to a friend who lives in Paris. Emilie Lucas is a Paris native who once traveled to Pendleton as a youngster when her father and mother worked for a year at the research center. She then returned as a teenage exchange student and lived with the Smiley family. The connection remains strong and Lucas’ father even sports a Pendleton Round-Up bumper sticker on his car. Lucas volunteered to call the taxi system’s lost-and-found and, after having no luck, called periodically over the next several weeks. The Smileys realized they had probably seen the last of the bag and the camera inside.
About a week after arriving home, a message on the Smileys’ answering machine stunned the couple. A woman’s melodic voice told them in halting English that they had left their bag in her father’s cab.
“We were amazed,” Richard said. “Then, we checked our e-mail and there was an e-mail message from her, too.”
Richard and Marilyn were baffled. As far as they could remember, the bag held absolutely no clue to their identities. Then a light bulb came on in Richard’s brain.
“The information was in the camera,” he said.
After purchasing the camera, Richard remembered, he had embedded their names, phone number and e-mail address into the device by using the camera’s lock-in function.
“I typed the information on a white piece of paper and took a picture of it,” he said. “Then, I locked the photo into the camera so when we deleted our photos, it wouldn’t disappear.”
The cab driver, Althony LaLanne, had looked at the photos and found the identification. His daughter Emannuelle, a marketing student at a Paris university, had volunteered to contact the Smileys.
After some brainstorming between Emannuelle and Emilie Lucas, they came up with a plan to get the bag home.
First, Lucas picked up the bag from the cab driver’s daughter. Lucas then traveled to her parents’ home in Pace, a small town in eastern France, and handed the bundle off to an American friend, Molly Bloom, whom she had met while attending Lincoln Elementary School in 1991. Bloom was in town for the holidays to visit her brother John, who teaches in a school near Pace. The Bloom family stopped by to visit with the Lucas family.
Agreeing to shepherd the bag back to the states, Bloom tucked it into her luggage and returned to her home in Petaluma, Calif., where she mailed the bag to the Smileys. The package arrived on Jan. 10 as the Smileys were getting ready to watch Oregon play Auburn in the national championship game.
The contents were intact. Richard inspected the camera and noticed that someone had switched the camera’s digital language function to French. And there was a surprise.
“There was an extra photo. It showed the taxi driver, Althony LaLanne, in the living room of his home in Paris,” Richard said. “What joy. But, even greater is the honesty and extraordinary effort that was taken to return these belongings to us.”
In the picture, the cabbie looks smilingly into the lens.
“We have a new best friend — our cabbie,” Marilyn said, laughing. “This one honest man got this whole thing going.”
The couple plans to send the taxi driver and his daughter some Pendleton memorabilia, along with reimbursement for the international telephone call. The relationship promises to continue the cabbie’s daughter, Emmanuelle, has asked for assistance in editing the English version of her resume and the couple agreed to help.
With the return of the bag, the couple adds yet another memory to a trip that included cathedrals, the Arc de Triomphe and the light show at the Eiffel Tower.
For their part, the LaLannes wonder at the fuss over the bag’s return. In her last e-mail to the Smileys, Emmanuele wrote “It’s totally normal that we give your bag back.”
Ford Connect Transit Vans Become Chicago's Newest Taxi.
19/01/2011 - http://www.wilx.com/news/headlines/Ford_Connect_Transit_Vans_Become_Chicagos_Newest_Taxi_114355974.html
A Chicago taxicab company will soon begin using a dozen Ford Transit Connect vans that run on natural gas instead of petroleum.
Taxi Medallion Management, which is affiliated with Yellow Cab Chicago, bought the small commercial vans as part of its goal to cut its total emissions by 25 percent, Ford and the cab company said in a statement issued Friday. They're due to be delivered in March.
Natural gas is less expensive than gasoline and burns cleaner, giving off up to 90 percent fewer smog-producing pollutants, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It also produces 30 percent to 40 percent less greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA's website said. Almost 90 percent of it is produced in the U.S.
"We are adding vehicles with more fuel-efficient gasoline engines, as well as vehicles with alternative-fuel sources, to find a vehicle mix that best suits our customers, our drivers, the city at large and the environment," Michael Levine, the cab company's CEO, said in the statement.
The Transit Connect normally is used as a delivery van, but second-row seats can be added. The Transit Connect gets 23 mpg in combined city-highway driving, 21 percent better than a conventional cab like the Ford Crown Victoria sedan.
Taxi fees not fair to students.
18/01/2011 - http://www.alligator.org/news/local/article_fcf3b8c0-22c8-11e0-82b7-001cc4c002e0.html
In the winter of 2009, Ben Meyers needed to get his drunk friend home.
As they came out of a midtown bar, they spotted a taxi parked on the street. This would be a great way, Meyers thought, to get a lift for the mile walk back to Fraternity Row.
But Meyers, the current UF Student Senate president, ran into a problem — the driver never ran his meter.
And the ferryman asked a high price. For the mile-long drive, the driver asked Meyers to shell out $20.
“Bar fee,” he said the driver called it.
Not knowing what to do or how to negotiate, Meyers relented. He paid the fare, and for an entire year, he didn’t take the taxi again.
There have been many similar complaints of taxi drivers in Gainesville over-charging students for cab fares. Sometimes, the fares drivers demand can be things like $20 per passenger to travel only 10 blocks, Meyers said.
Situations like these are made possible by drivers who park outside bars and wait for drunk students to come out. Without a call being made to a dispatcher, drivers don’t have to report their fares, and are free to charge whatever fees they want to students, Meyers said.
In addition, if drunk students refuse to pay, drivers may threaten to call police in an effort to coax payment out of passengers.
“Knowing students, if I was a taxi driver and I had nobody looking over my shoulder, it would be fairly easy to pull a stunt like that,” Meyers said.
Nineteen-year-old Hannah Hong was another who got into similar situation.
In early fall semester, Hong was traveling downtown with three of her Alpha Delta Pi sorority sisters.
After getting a ride from another sister to the area, Hong found it difficult to find another ride back to her apartment on Sorority Row. The taxi seemed like a viable option.
When the taxi arrived, the driver did not inform Hong of how much she would be asked to pay. Instead, he just drove.
And when they arrived, Hong said, the bombshell came — $20 per person.
Hong found a way to scrape together the $80 sum that was being demanded, but she fumed.
“It was completely ridiculous,” she said.
Though Hong’s driver was deviating from a normal flat-rate, charging flat-rates to students is not illegal in Gainesville. Taxi drivers are permitted to charge whatever they like, so long as the charges are posted in the window and pre-approved by the city.
Despite its legality, flat-rate charging has led to situations where students are gouged by drivers claiming to be charging flat “bar rates,” Meyers said.
“The companies stand to lose from these policies,” he said. “If taxi drivers aren’t reporting that they’re giving rides, then they’re not giving their share of the fares to the company.”
When he assumed the position of Student Senate president, one of the issues Meyers sought to address was students’ rights and one of the problems on his mind was the taxis.
The issue came under the microscope of FICA, or the Fairness In Commerce Ad-Hoc Committee.
Meyers said he believes cooperating with the city would be the best way to get taxi drivers to run their meters.
On Tuesday at 7 p.m., a joint meeting between the City Commission and Student Government will take place in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom, and the taxi issue will be on the docket.
In addition, SG has the Alternative Transportation Ad-Hoc, which aims to further promote methods of alternative transportation in the city.
By bulking up promotion of services like SNAP, GOTCHA and Zipcars, Meyers said he hopes to create more competition for taxis, which would in turn force taxis to offer more competitive prices.
Student Body President Ashton Charles is another SG official who once found herself at the mercy of over-charging taxi drivers.
She began talking to others in her apartment complex and found they had the same problems she did.
Some had reported being charged over $40 to get to midtown or downtown.
Charles decided to see for herself.
She, along with Meyers, decided to take part in a one-night sting operation in which they would take the taxi along with undercover police officers from the Gainesville Police Department on Dec. 8. The purpose of the operation would not be to make arrests, but rather to just see which drivers wouldn’t run the meter.
The majority of the time, the meter wasn’t running.
The operation ran from 10 p.m. that night to 3 a.m. the next morning.
Out of 19 fares, University Police Department spokesman Jeff Holcomb said, 11 did not run the meter.
According to a list compiled by the Gainesville Police Department, the following companies were found to have not run the meter: Bestway Cab, Unimet Taxicab Co., Safety Cabs and Gator Taxi Cab. Gainesville Cab Co. was the only company listed that was reported to have run the meter every time during the operation.
Michael Ross started Bestway Cab in 1997.
The now 44-year-old Ross said that his company has since been known for providing great service, in the process earning service contracts with the state attorney’s office and the public defender’s office.
City Ordinance 28-9 allows for flat-rate charging, and Ross said his charge sheet, which includes a variety of flat-rate charges, has been approved by city hall.
On top of that, Ross said that drivers will sometimes offer discounts on per-head flat rates when large parties come into a taxi.
“If we have to start running the meter, there will be no more discounts,” Ross said. “It’ll be what the meter says.”
Ross admitted that the charge sheet, which lists the company’s flat rate, is required by law to be posted in three places in all taxi cabs, could be confusing to students. On top of confusing rate sheets, Ross said that newer cab companies coming into town have created a negative perception of his company and Gainesville’s entire taxi industry.
“We’ve got new cab companies and they are flat-rating out of this world,” he said.
That’s why Ross puts the burden of responsibility on his drivers to make sure passengers agree to fares before rides.
However, not all drivers fulfill that obligation.
The only way Ross knows there’s even a passenger in the vehicle is when people call in for dispatch. When drivers are flagged down by customers, he relies on the driver’s word to know they had a fare.
He said a way to self-police his company would be to put cameras in cars, but that’s not feasible.
So Ross instead relies on the honor system, trusting his drivers to follow the rules out on the road.
One such driver is Joe, who drives a taxi in Gainesville.
Before he carried people around the city in his taxi, Joe, whose real name is being withheld, was a drummer.
Twenty-three years ago, he set the beat for his band, and that was all he ever intended on doing.
But after the band split and his wife became pregnant, Joe had to find a new profession. Armed with only his skills as a musician and a driver’s license, Joe decided to drive cabs for a living.
“[My favorite part is] meeting people from all walks of life and lots of different countries,” he said. “People come to UF from all over the world. It can be fun. Back when I was a dispatcher, I missed that part of it.”
But the biggest problem for Joe, and many other taxi drivers, is the pay.
“You never know how much you’re gonna make from one day to the next,” he said. “Trying to budget on a cab driver’s wage is difficult. You don’t even have minimum wage to rely on.”
Joe said that he believes there is a negative perception of taxi drivers and companies in Gainesville as being “crooked.” A lot of that has to do with the fares. Instead of clearly explaining fares, fare sheets leave a lot of gray area.
“Students definitely deserve a simpler system,” he said.
The system of flat rates is designed, Joe said, to make things easier on the drivers and the passengers. And it can sometimes work in favor of students as opposed to against them.
Joe gave the example of taking four students from The Swamp restaurant to downtown.
By running the meter, he would be charging a student a $10 minimum in addition to an additional $1 for extra passengers. The total would come out to $13.
But if he instead offered a per-head flat rate of $3, it would come out to $12, saving the students a dollar.
But the lack of a steady income could lead drivers to take advantage of the flat-rate system, Joe said.
“The honor system of reporting fares is only reliable as the honesty of the driver,” he said.
Ultimately, both Meyers and Student Body President Ashton Charles say that the issue of taxis overcharging students is one of student safety.
“The moment I hear that somebody’s willing to drive home four beers in rather than take a taxi,” Meyers said, “I know that there’s a major issue.”
NYC Votes To Change Taxi Driver Dress Code.
14/01/2011 - http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/01/21/nyc-votes-to-change-taxi-driver-dress-code/
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City officials have changed a rule governing what taxi drivers can wear — and it’s not too shabby.
The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission voted unanimously to amend existing regulations to require that drivers maintain “a professional appearance.”
The previous rule had prohibited specific clothing from being worn as outerwear, such as underwear, tank tops, and swimwear.
The new rule emphasizes broad parameters, that a driver’s overall appearance has to be neat, clean and professional. TLC Commissioner David Yassky says ethnic and religious garb are welcome.
Drivers will face a $25 fine for any violation, but Yassky insisted before Thursday’s vote that there would be no fashion police.
(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Introducing the First Real Taxi Meter Innovation in 100 Years.
08/02/2010 - http://www.fastcompany.com/1725184/introducing-the-first-real-taxi-meter-innovation-in-over-100-years?partner=rss
Meet the taxi meter that would take over the world. World Moto wants to bring meters--durable, advertising-enabled, black-box-housing, tamper-proof meters--to the 200 million motorcycle taxis that are so popular in the developing world.
As gadgets go, it's hardly the sexiest. It's a meter. For taxis. For motorcycle taxis, to be precise. And yet it might just be a $3 billion dollar idea.
Paul Giles, President of World Moto, whose new Moto-Meter hits the streets of Bangkok in March, remembers when he first got the idea for his product. An American ex-pat in Bangkok, Giles was hanging out with some motorcycle taxi drivers. It's a common profession in Thailand, where traffic often clogs the path of cars, leading some 700,000 Thai men and women earn their living by weaving moto-taxis in and out of traffic. In recent years, moto-taxis have become wildly popular not only in Thailand but across the cities and towns of Asia, Africa, and South America. In mega-cities like Bangkok, Laos, and Sao Paolo, their growth has been exponential.
But moto-taxis have sprung up as a mostly unregulated industry. Lacking meters, moto-taxis' fares are subjective--the sort of situation that leads to knowing admonitions in Lonely Planet guides, and surly behavior on the part of tourists and taxi drivers alike, each mistrustful of the other.
As Giles talked with some of his taxi-driving acquaintances back in 2003, he got to wondering, why don't moto-taxis have meters? "It's interesting because it's such a simple idea," he tells Fast Company. "When it hit, it was like a lightning bolt. I thought, my God, they're everywhere, why don't they have a meter?"
Giles hopped on Google immediately, convinced someone else must have had the idea before him. He entered "motorcycle taxi meter" and pressed search. "It's amazing, you can close your eyes and type on the keyboard a random set of number and letters, and you'll get results on Google," he says. But his search query turned up nothing. He tried every hyphenated and compound-worded permutation he could think of: "moto-taxi meter," "motorcyle taximeter," and so on. Nothing, nothing, nothing. "No one had even thought of it, not even in any blogs, not even in blogs where people talk about the pricing of taxis." He started buying up domain names.
He began working on the idea, joining forces in 2008 with another America-to-Thailand ex-pat, Chris Ziomkowski, now World Moto's Chief Technical Officer. The more the two researched, the more opportunities they realized there were for innovations in motorcycle taximetry.
The first problem to tackle was durability. Were you to take a standard taxi meter and simply jerry-rig it onto your motorcycle, it would not be long for this world. Says Ziomkowski: "The standard meter isn't sealed against environmental hazards. Road dust, rain, splashing water--the standard meter out of a taxi would quickly fail."
That was an obvious one. The team soon realized, though, that apart from digitization, the taxi meter had barely been revised since it had been invented in 1891. They came up with idea after idea--"feature creep," they call it--taking their time implementing each one.
Take advertising, for instance. In recent years, interactive screens have appeared in taxis in New York and elsewhere, bringing in ad revenue. But there's no reason why advertising can't play a role on even a relatively low-tech taxi meter. Moto-Meter enables simple LED-display ads to run for the duration of a ride, earning revenue for the driver and for World Moto. "I've shown the drivers, and it's like Homer Simpson and beer," Giles says. "Ooh...advertising!"
Another innovation is the black box -- a device recording data in the event of an accident. These are familiar from airplanes, of course, and have also made their way into automobiles, initially as part of the airbag system. Since motorcycles don't have airbags, there was never a similar evolution in data recording for bikes. "Why not?" says Ziomkowski. "They [black boxes] reduce accidents. Just the knowledge that someone is monitoring driving behavior tends to change the way drivers drive." The black box will record speed, acceleration, braking information, crash force, and even when passengers are sitting and when they're ejected from seats, all data of interest to law enforcement and insurers. Thousands die each year in Thailand from motorcycle accidents (though moto-taxi drivers tend to drive much more safely than those who merely dabble in biking), and World Moto wants to help reduce that figure.
Finally, the team also developed an anti-tampering feature to further assure customers they're paying a fair rate. If motorcycle taxis tamper with the meter, it shuts down.
They poured about $1 million, all told, into the development of the device.
"There will be uses for [Moto-Meter] we can't even predict," says Giles. "I didn't come to Thailand to build a meter for motorcycle taxis," he adds, with a tone of marvel and bewilderment. (He had come, at first, to run a security business for hotels.) "But once we own that space above the handlebars, there are so many things we can do with that."
The device runs about $180, cheaper than a standard taxi meter, says Giles. With moto-taxi drivers making a nice middle-class wage in Thailand--in Bangkok, they make more than teachers, nurses, and construction workers, he claims -- they can afford it. And by reducing acrimony and averting lost potential fares, it should pay for itself soon, goes the logic. The market for the device is potentially enormous, with 20 million moto-taxis in the world and counting. Hence the potential $3-billion figure Giles estimates.
Different markets will demand different models: in one country, a government might require the meter; in another, consumer demand might drive the purchase; in another, a taxi union might adopt it. In Bangkok, among the drivers he knows and has shown the device to, Giles finds that they are excited at the prospect of the legitimacy afforded by a standardized gadget. "I've seen it in the eyes and tone of voice of guys I've spoken with," says Giles. "It's just a feeling of, 'I've been marginalized for such a long time. Here's a device I can feel proud of myself with.'"