Taxicabs of the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Throughout the United States there is a mature system of taxicabs. Most US cities have a licensing scheme which restricts the number of taxicabs allowed. These are sometimes called medallions or CPNC (Certificate of Public Necessity and Convenience).
Often taxi businesses own their own cars, and the drivers are employees of the company. However, cabs can also be owned by separately-incorporated small businesses that subscribe to a dispatch service, in which case the company logo on the door is that of the dispatch association.
A suburban taxi company may operate under several different names serving several adjacent towns. They often provide different phone numbers for each fleet, but they usually all ring into a central dispatch office. They may have subsidiary taxi businesses holding medallions in each town. Taxi companies also may run multiple businesses, such as non-medallion car services, delivery services, and school buses, for additional revenue, as the infrastructure required for maintaining, operating and dispatching the fleet can be shared.
Contents |
[edit] Types of taxicabs
There is a distinction between medallion taxicabs and livery cars. Medallion taxicabs are allowed to pick up street hails, while livery cars are only allowed to take dispatched calls or make prearranged pickups. Taxicabs are more regulated than livery cars, and usually have their rates set by the city. Most U.S. cities only allow a certain number of medallions, which causes them to become a valuable commodity. When a taxi is called to pick up a fare outside of their area, they are operating as a livery car, because the medallion is only good in the town that issued it. An out-of-town taxi may not pick up street hails.
Although the medallion usually allows the driver to cruise for fares anywhere in the municipality, taxis tend to cruise areas where they receive the most hails, such as the business districts. Thus they can be very difficult to find in other areas, which must be served by livery cars.
A livery car that provides local service looks very much like a taxicab, except it does not have a meter or "taxi" light on the roof. Another type of livery service is the "black car", or sedan limo, which tends to primarily serve business customers. These are usually big, black, American-made luxury cars that usually look identical to private vehicles - they typically do not bear their company name or logo. Stretch limousines, even though they are technically considered livery cars, are typically reserved for hours at a time long in advance, and have little in common with taxicabs.
A "jitney" van is a hybrid between a bus and a livery car. Instead of operating point to point, it will pick up and drop off several passengers along an ad-hoc route.
A "gypsy cab" is a car that illegally picks up street hails without a medallion. This could refer to an ordinary passenger car, but it usually refers to a livery car that picks up off the curb. Pejoratively, this is sometimes used to refer to all livery cars, for example in New York City.
Some corporations run a shuttle bus to transport employees to and from different company locations. These are usually regulated as livery cars, and are not allowed to pick up employees except at the shuttle stops. If they picked up an employee after being hailed, they could be fined for operating a gypsy cab.
[edit] Boston, Massachusetts
 |
Please help improve this article by expanding this section. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. Please remove this message once the section has been expanded. |
The City of Boston, Massachusetts issues hackney carriage licenses. The Boston Police Hackney Carriage Unit handles the regulation of the city's taxis.
[edit] Chicago, Illinois
Taxicabs in Chicago, Illinois are operated by private companies and licensed by the city. There are nearly seven thousand licensed cabs operating within the city limits. Licenses are obtained through the purchase or lease of a taxi medallion which is then affixed to the top right hood of the car.
Each medallion carries a numeric code, which is also displayed prominently at several locations on (and in) the taxicab. The medallion must be purchased from the city or from another medallion owner. The supply of medallions is strictly controlled to prevent a surplus of cabs, which means that medallions trade at a high price. Unlike other cities Chicago taxis can be of any color and drivers are not required to wear uniforms.
Flagging a taxi down is fairly easy throughout most city neighborhoods, but can often be more difficult in areas where there is low demand for cabs. Drivers are required to pick up the first or closest passenger they see, and may not refuse a fare anywhere within the city.
The passenger is required to pay the amount on the taximeter plus any additional tolls or fees. The initial entry, sometimes called a "meter drop" or "flag pull", is $2.25 regardless of distance traveled. Each additional fraction of a mile charge is $.20 for each additional 1/9 of a mile. Additionally, each 36 seconds of time elapsed, known as "wait time", is $.20. This charge is in place to ensure the driver still makes money if the cab is stuck in bad traffic. There is a flat fee of $1.00 for the first additional passenger and another $.50 for each additional passenger after that unless the passenger is under 12 or over 65 years of age.
An additional charge of $1.00 is added to the total fare on each trip to or from O'Hare or Midway Airports under the State of Illinois Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority (MPEA) Airport Departure Ordinance. The tax should appear on the meter as an "extra" charge. There is no additional charge for baggage or credit card use and tipping is optional but encouraged at the rate of 10% of the total taximeter fare.
Below are some estimated cab fares from State and Madison, the downtown zero point.
- State and Madison to O'Hare Airport: $30 - $35.
- State and Madison to Midway Airport: $22 - $28.
- State and Madison to the United Center: $8 - $10.
Rates from Chicago, excluding O'Hare and Midway Airports, are straight meter to the city limits plus meter and one-half from the city limits to the destination.
Straight meter fares apply to all trips departing from Midway or O'Hare airports to the following suburbs. (All other trips are metered at one and one half the rate from Chicago's city limits to the suburbs.)
[edit] New York, New York
In New York City, radio dispatching was introduced to that city's famous fleet of yellow taxis in the 1960s. After complaints from customers who were being passed up on the street by taxis on the way to pick up dispatched trips, a new regulation was introduced requiring radio-equipped taxis to not be painted yellow.
The city's taxi system is now divided into 'medallion taxis'; the familiar, meter-equipped yellow taxis visible in photographs, films, and television programmes, and which are allowed to pick up flagging passengers on the street--and "for-hire vehicles"--including "car services" (conventional taxis) and "black cars" (luxury vehicles)--which provide radio- or computer-dispatched service to calling customers. For-hire vehicles do not have taxi meters, but instead charge fares based on zones, duration, or distance.[1][2]
[edit] Car service
Car service, known more widely as a livery vehicle, is a term used in New York City and surrounding areas to refer to a type of vehicle-for-hire transportation. In New York, it differs from taxi service in that the term "taxi" is used exclusively to refer to medallion taxis, which are chauffeured vehicles which may be flagged down on the street on demand.
By contrast, car service refers to services which are hired only by appointment over the telephone and dispatched by radio to the driver. Car service differs from the more upscale limousine services which are usually reserved for special occasions or business purposes.
Car service is especially popular in the parts of New York City, such as Staten Island and parts of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, which do not have circulating taxi service. Car service vehicles do not resemble taxicabs but normal sedans of various colors, the most popular, especially in the New York area, being the early 90s to early 2000s Lincoln Town Car, usually marked by a company logo on the door. Car service also differs from taxicab service in New York in that whereas taxicab fares are determined by meters, car service fares are determined by distance and are typically told to the driver over the intercom radio. In local terminology, one is said to "take car service" when using/hiring such a vehicle.
[edit] New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission
The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC), established in 1971, is the regulatory agency for New York City's medallion (yellow) taxicabs, livery cabs, commuter vans, paratransit vehicles (ambulettes) and some luxury limousines.
In the late 1990s, mayor Rudolph Giuliani ordered the agency to initiate a series of 'crackdowns' on allegedly reckless taxi drivers. Thus, the TLC enacted more draconian rules and stepped up enforcement. While the TLC has claimed success in this area, its efforts have also come back to bite it. In 2002, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated taxi drivers' first amendement rights by refusing to let the drivers engage in a peaceful protest of new rules. It lost a series of cases in state courts for implementing rules without allowing for notice and comment.
In 2004, TLC inspectors were embarrassed when they handcuffed and arrested "60 Minutes" reporter Mike Wallace, charging him with disorderly conduct for simply questioning the treatment of his driver. TLC Chairman Matt Daus was forced to apologize. Then in 2006, the TLC agreed to pay a group of 500 taxi drivers $7 million in settlement] of charges that it unconstitutionally suspended their licenses.[3] In more than 100 cases, the TLC allegedly revoked those licenses altogether.
[edit] Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
In Pittsburgh, 'jitney' refers to an unlicensed taxi. They are plentiful in low-income communities where regular taxi service is scarce. As enforcement is lax, jitney drivers have even created cooperatives to support each other and to establish jitney stands. They are known to gather at the parking lots of grocery stores in low-income communities. Some jitney drivers accept requests for service by phone from their regular customers.[4]
The issue of whether to legalize jitneys has been considered several times by Pennsylvania's Public Utilities Commission since at least 1975.[5] Famed Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson wrote a play called Jitney, which was published in 1982.
[edit] Washington, D.C.
The District of Columbia operates on a zone system; the fare is based on the zone the cab starts in when the passenger enters, and the zone the cab is in where the passenger exits, for trips which are entirely within the District. Washington is one of the few large cities in the United States to have taxicabs without meters. Cabs cannot charge for waiting time, and if the trip will not detour more than four blocks in doing so, are permitted to pick up additional passengers while carrying a fare.
For trips which terminate outside of the District, ("Interstate fares") the fare is based on mileage (plus special fees such as the taxi surcharge for trips to Ronald Reagan Airport in Arlington, Virginia, or Dulles Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, the two "official" airports of Washington.
The zone system was instituted shortly after World War II when meters were first authorized, when a temporary suspension of the meter system was imposed. (This provides evidence of an error in the motion picture "The Other Side of Midnight" in which the character Kathy is taking a taxicab in Washington, D.C. during the 1930s and states to the driver that if the meter goes over $1.00 she's in trouble, as Washington has never had metered taxicabs.) This temporary suspension of the introduction of meters has been continued for over 50 years.
In October 2005, the District began a pilot project that is intended to test of use of meters in DC cabs. The project involves the use of 24 taxicabs that have been outfitted with standard meters. The driver operates the meter during the course of each trip and at trip's end collects the usual zone fare but records both the zone and meter fare for comparative purposes. After 8 months the comparative cost data will be analyzed by universities participating in the project and a 'revenue neutral' rate for the transition from the zones to meters will be determined.
The goal of the District's project is to determine what meter rate should be used in the initial stage of the transition. The expectation is that an initial transition meter rate will be established that will allow drivers to raise the same amount of revenue under the new system as they did under the old for the same trips. Thus, policymakers can assure both drivers and passengers that, on a global basis, the transition will not have a significant negative impact from the standpoint of fares charged and income generated. The proposed rate must be approved by the District's Taxicab Commission and the City Council before it can take effect.
Many of the taxis are pale yellow or white. Some of the most common taxis in the city include Ford Crown Victoria, Ford Taurus, some Mercurys, and even some Lincoln Town Car models. These cars are roomy but old.
[edit] Taxicabs by city
| City | Taxi Certificates | Other |
|---|---|---|
| Atlanta, Georgia | 1,600 | plus 500 limos and 31 horse-drawn |
| Austin, Texas | 700 | |
| Baltimore, Maryland | 1,151 | |
| Boston, Massachusetts | 1,565 | |
| Chicago, Illinois | 6,000 | |
| Dayton, Ohio | 117 | |
| Detroit, Michigan | 1,310 | |
| Houston, Texas | 2,245 | |
| Los Angeles, California | 2,300 | |
| Minneapolis, Minnesota | 600 | |
| New York, New York | 13,087 | and 40,000+ other for hire vehicles |
| San Francisco, California | 1,381 | 71 of these are wheelchair accessible |
[edit] References
- Taxicabs per city study
- Baltimore study
- Boston study
- Los Angeles study
- New York City study
- San Francisco study
[edit] Notes
- ^ The New York City Taxicab Fact Book
- ^ NYC Taxi & Livery Fact Book Definitions
- ^ Padberg v. McGrath-McKechnie, TLC 'Operation Refusal' lawsuit
- ^ 'Jitneys remain in driver's seat', Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 20 June 2004
- ^ 'Jitneys Legalization Proposed to Ease Transportation Woes'
