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New York Taxi Drivers To Strike Over GPS
Stony Stevenson notes a NYTimes story on labor unrest caused by high-tech privacy concerns. One organization of taxi drivers plans a 48-hour strike, while another opposes any such action. "One taxi group plans to strike from 5 a.m. Sept. 5, through 5 a.m. Sept. 7, in opposition to New York City's requirement that all cabs be equipped with GPS technology beginning Oct. 1... saying GPS infringes on drivers' privacy... The Taxi and Limousine Commission passed a rule stating that all New York City cabs must have touch-screen display panels, credit card readers, and GPS beginning this year. Many taxis already are equipped with the technologies, which allow passengers to get news, route data, and other information. The TLC claims that the technology will not be used to invade drivers' privacy but will provide real-time maps and help passengers recover lost property."
I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the occasional taxi driver making a tourist's trip 10x longer than it's supposed to be...
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
"The TLC claims that the technology will not be used to invade drivers' privacy but will provide real-time maps and help passengers recover lost property." While it may provide real-time maps and help passengers recover lost property, none of that means that it will not be used to invade drivers' privacy.
What could honestly be bad about having a GPS installed in your taxi? The only thing it could possibly be used for is stopping taxi drivers from ripping off customers, really.
Privacy threat? How is it any worse than having a camera in your office at a desk job?
I get the privacy concerns, because if places are allowed to abuse it and track all their drivers, they will, but the stuff they are adding on seems really cool to me. They'd be able to take credit cards AND have GPS services to navigate better...I mean...that sounds like a really good idea to me and they justified it pretty well saying that the cabbies get better tips and longer rides.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
Sorry, but unless you're driving your cab to an abortion clinic, I don't think your giving up any more privacy than the rest of us.
Fortune favors the bold.
Maybe I have not been thinking about this hard enough, but isn't GPS a passive system in that the receiver only listen to signal but doesn't transmit any. Are they concerned about a GPS reciever that would record the route? My GPS only record the few previous destinations.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
This is a tremenous violation of our privacy. It will be much harder for us to make off-the-book trips and just pocket the money.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Full Disclosure: I do contract work for several companies that make mobile gps / bardoce / magstripe enabled devices for similar purposes.
Why I do support this
a) Improve productivity: The driver is on the job. As a capitalistic society we strive to improve productivity and, while sad, monitoring does do this.
b) All cabs take credit cards: Have you ever had a bad cab experience? How about having no cash and driver not accepting credit because it's past 6 PM (wtf is with that rule anyhow)
c) Bad Routes avoided: Looking at a map gives you some idea where you are and the driver would be less likely to take longer routes. Puts you, the consumer in control
d) Better privacy: Remember the stories of the handheld credit card readers being used by dishonest restaurant employees to steal your credit card? You don't hand your card to anyone, you pay at the device
e) Better oversight: If all the system use similar credit checking devices it's easier for regulatory groups to audit them -- versus having 30 different pos* devices
* Point of Sale
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
I know when I work that the system administrators are watching what I am doing: checking which ports I have open, which websites I visit and maybe even sometimes reading my mail. It seems like this is normal these days. Good luck with the strike, but I doubt it will change anything.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
I used to work with a company that deployed GPS devices to their sales people. They had similar concerns until I pointed out to a friend that the company could already track us fairly easily using our mobile phones if they really wanted to. GPS could just make that a bit easier.
When the insurance companies force their customers to put GPS devices in their own personal vehicles, no one is up in arms, but put them in cabs and there's a strike.
Even though TFA is a bit vague, AFAICC, the GPS transmitter only works when they have a passenger and the passenger wants it to be on. If this is the case, this is a really pathetic excuse for a strike. Maybe the are worried the Commission will take away their licenses for using circuitous routes to defraud customers or something.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I am a staunch libertarian and advocate for personal right to privacy, but there are no valid reasons for drivers to be concerned about their privacy in this scenario. Are airline pilots in danger of having their privacy violated because the aircraft's current trajectory and speed is logged? Effective fleet management and tracking is part of the industry you're working in, folks.
/Paranoid off
That said, I inherently don't trust government, and can start to see where the passenger's rights become threatened somewhat when the government's database starts linking credit card transactions with GPS records and begin constructing logs of people's travels. I mean, they are requiring cabs implement both at the same time.
When the industrial workers stuck their wooden shoes, or sabots, into the machinery that forced them to work without breaks.
Privacy is our birthright, no matter how many lies they give otherwise.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Do they have any right to privacy to begin with?
So nice to know that now, not only is my credit card info available, but every taxi trip I take in NYC is geocached for me and the DHS.
I can just imagine a movie in the not too near future (I'm writing this down because I want it documented that I thought of it) where a serial killer spells out the name of his next intended victim using his GPS fare info. The detective cracks that mystery just in time to see the killer spell the name of someone dear to him.
Meh. Probably rent it, but not see it in the theater.
Fail to see how this infringes on driver's privacy.
Do the cars belong to the drivers? No. They are the company's property.
Do the drivers drive them in their own free time? No. They are doing business work driving these cars and are paid for it.
Do companies have the right to keep track of how their assets are used? Absolutely.
For those who compare this to companies that put keyloggers on employee's computers - this is NOT the same. If companies were to install cameras inside cabs and watch the driver's behavior (something many bus companies actually do), or record the drivers voice, or even record driving manners by analyzing the car computer's data - you'd have a (somewhat) legitimate case of privacy invasion, since you'd monitor the driver himself.
The GPS however, only monitors the cab. In the worst case scenario (for privacy advocates) the data could be used to find drivers who just don't do their jobs, say those who say they are busy with a customer while the GPS indicates they are parked near a fast food restaurant. But companies do have the right to monitor the productivity of their workers to a certain degree.
This kind of monitoring would be equivalent to an IT company monitoring which workstations are turned on, how often does a particular person check in his source code, or even where is the current physical location of a business laptop given to an employee on a business trip and who has been told that the laptop is for official use only, and that he should use his personal laptop for any non work related activity or travel. This is fair business practice, not a privacy invasion. If the employee was stupid enough to take his WORK laptop to a nightclub, and/or even stupider to do it on his workshift, and then get tracked there, it's his own fault and he deserves to be fired - not for immoral behavior but for abuse of company resources and slacking off on the job. Had the employee taken his own personal laptop on his own free time, he would not have been monitored or caught.
Same story with the cabs - they are not personal vehicles - they are given to drivers for business use only, on paid business shifts only, and companies have the right to make sure the equipment is used as intended.
Besides, there are lots of other legimiate uses for GPS in cabs - such as improved computer-assisted dispatcher coordination, by automatically finding which cab is closest to a taxi request, or by providing interactive driving maps to drivers.
I'm all for privacy, and I hate when companies track the behavior of employees which is not related to business use or done on their own free time (such as firing someone because he visits a swinger's club or whatever). But if you do that on your workshift and using company resources, then it's your own stupid fault and you have every right to be fired.
This is yesterday's story. And not much of one.
Now coming to a city near you. Johnny Cab
I live in NYC and take a cab ride just about every day. I still get excited when I find a cab with this new technology suite. After all, San Fran has a much nicer, modern "subway" system, Hong Kong has that great train with video screens, and I'm sure other cities have new stuff to brag about with their transportation infrastructure. What do we have in NYC? Checked out our subways recently?
The cool thing is that these vehicles are still the famous "yellow" taxi cabs of NYC lore, but:
1. You can watch a real time, zoomable map of NYC to see where you are and estimate how much further you have to go. Any idea how great this is for tourists or people new to town? (Was very helpful showing in-laws the route from airport to home in real time and pointing out important locations...)
2. You can watch news which is great if stuck in FDR traffic.
3. You can see how much you owe and why.
4. Legal information / passenger rights / terms and conditions are presented much more efficiently and tidily. That is, it cleans up the cab from all of that paperwork.
I fully support the new cabs and hope that they will improve them with real time traffic volume on the maps, etc.
What worried me is that those credits cards are now tied to this GPS system. Everywhere you go in these taxi cabs will now be on record if you use your credit card. Like I said, I think the rate at which people regularly use taxi cabs and credit cards is ridiculous anyway. Simply using cash would help people to avoid a whole deluge of privacy concerns, not just the ones from the taxi cabs of tomorrow.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
For those of you who don't see the boiling frog issue...
1:Taxi company installs GPS and charges with credit cards.
2:Taxi company stores credit card details of it's customers in huge database
3:Taxi company stores GPS data in huge database
4:NSA demand access to the last 10 years of data from the database.
5:The government now knows about every cab ride you have taken, within an accuracy of 1m - 10m, for the past 10 years.
It doesn't matter if the NSA does not have this authority today ( hint: they do ) the mere fact that data like this can be accumulated means that it will be, and that will at any latter point in time enable anybody with access to the database to tell where anybody they didn't like has gone for a cab ride.
Now, that was the taxi company. Now merge this data with the data from restaurants, face-recognition software on video tapes from old surveillance cameras... etc...
The problem isn't that they can know what cab rides you have been on. The problem is that before you know it they can know what cab,bus,airplane,train you were on, what restaurant you ate at, where you placed a call with your cellphone, which "security" camera you walked by, what stores you visited.. etc etc... Much of this data is already being collected, and as long as it is kept there is little to stop a future government from suddenly overturning all privacy laws and demand access to all this data at once. If ( i.e when/already ) they do this they will be able to reconstruct your entire life. Were you politically inconvenient? Well, what have we known, suddenly there are laws which punish you retroactively...
The scary bit is that I don't even have to come up with a conspiracy theory. The law already permits it. The NSA already has the taps running, and the legislation is already in place. Good game.
One organization of taxi drivers plans a 48-hour strike, while another opposes any such action.
So this'll bring the taxi:people ratio in New York down to about 2:1? Good lord.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
This news is somewhat old in New York, and it's interesting to see slashdot spin this from a tech angle.
In actuality, many of the cab drivers are upset because if they are forced to accept credit cards, they will have to pay thousands of dollars out of their own money to install the flat-screens in the backseat, raise the price of renting a taxi itself to drive, and allow the credit card companies to pocket about a dollar out of every fare. That will add up.
Rather than throw technology at the cabs, I'd prefer if they made it a requirement that NY taxi drivers spoke English and knew their way around the city, like the London ones do.
So, the driver is "leasing" a 2-inch square piece of metal and the cab it is attached to, because he/she could never afford to buy one themselves.
The rates cabs can charge are set by the Boston Police department. The per-shift charge owners can charge to lease the cab? Ding ding! You guessed it, set by the city.
It's modern-day sharecropping.
I know when I work that the system administrators are watching what I am doing: checking which ports I have open, which websites I visit and maybe even sometimes reading my mail.
No they're NOT reading your damn mail. I hate these claims. 99.9% of the sysadmins out there a)are horrified by such a suggestion and b)don't have time to do it anyway.
Maybe if you work at a large company someone is spot-checking outgoing email or they're running filters with certain keywords (looking for sexual harassment and such), but...gaaaaah.
Please help metamoderate.
Yeah cabbies, don't worry. We're already tracking you and listening in on you through your cell phone.
Good for them. I hope they win. There really are more important things in life than squeezing the last nickel out of everybody. Basic human dignity is one of them. There's no dignity in having a boss or a government agency knowing exactly where you are every second you're at work. That's going too far.
I don't respond to AC's.
How is this an invasion of their privacy? I read TFA and nothing in it says the government can track the cabs using the GPS receivers in real time. They're already turning in their route maps according to the conditions of their license.
as far as i can tell, a taxi strike won't affect my trains/feet/buses. let them strike for a decade.
Let us see here. They take your picture when you get in the cab. I would assume that is time and date stamped. Then, GPS information is recorded about your travels.
"What right does a cab driver have to privacy from his company when he's in his company's car and working on company time?"
So you shouldn't have any problems with keyloggers and reading all your email, and a camera in the washroom so that they can make sure you're not reading a newspaper instead of/while "taking care of business". Or demanding all the details of any doctors' visit that was even partially covered by company insurance. And posting same on the corporate blog for all your coworkers to see. And you shouldn't have a problem with cavity searches to make sure you're not walking off with a red stapler ...
A lot of the taxicab drivers rent their rides for $X per shift + gas ... the only thing their boss needs to know about is that the cab is returned with a full tank at the end of the day, and they paid their $X bucks the the shift.
People don't have enough privacy as is ... maybe the fares don't want their movements tracked all the time. "Joe Blow took a cab ride from A to B on such-and-such a date" - booked off sick and went to the ball game, or his new wife checks and finds out he went to visit his daughter from his previous marriage, who doesn't get along with said trophy wife ...
People don't always lie for nefarious reasons. Removing another layer of privacy is just maing it easier for dickheads to make everyone else miserable.
Perhaps is this to prevent drivers from squeezing every last nickel out of us. Especially in such a large city, visitors may have no idea what the most direct and therefore cheapest route is to their destination. A system that shows the path will give the consumer the opportunity to be informed about the service they are buying and agree to or protest it as appropriate.
Why bother.
The other downside to taking credit cards is that, assuming the tips are tacked on to the credit card and not paid with cash, the tips because easily tracked. Which makes it a lot harder to claim less income at the end of the year.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
An acquaintance of mine once regaled me of an anecdote of then the cabbies were on strike in NYC en masse. As it goes the traffic in manhattan was a dream, and that they should strike all the time.
All the tech will already be setup to force the passenger to watch videos. Whats to stop management from blasting ads at the passengers and keeping the extra money? The advertising industry finds its way into everything. It will show its face here too. You cannot turn the display off (at least, not at first), they can ID you by credit card, and GPS allows them to determine nearby stores. Sounds like the perfect setup for targeted ads.
Not if your dollar coin contains an RFID chip.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Cornhole's Law: Every system, no matter it's original intended purpose, will eventually be put to use in a manner conducive to the organization's goals [e.g., profit, faster response, etc.] and detrimental to the worker.
The "real-time maps" and "helping passengers recover lost property" are transparent excuses. What is sought is a system that can monitor drivers' productivity and efficiency, so that the most profitable drivers can be kept and the least profitable driven out of the business.
In many cities, taxicab drivers own their vehicles and are independent contractors. They must buy their cab from the taxi company. Regardless of the arrangement, taxi companies are in the business of wringing as much money as possible out of the drivers and into their own pockets.
This system will allow the company to determine when the taxi driver stops for coffee, picks up clothes at the cleaners, visits his girlfriend, and takes a leak. Most people would judge such a system at the least as "intrusive". But when it is used to hire and fire drivers, it becomes a matter of some legal importance.
Note that police officers also oppose GPS and other monitoring systems on their vehicles for the same reasons.
Big brother avoidance and evasion is going to be big business.
GPS is one-way from satellite to receiver, so there are no privacy concerns. There may be privacy concerns over some kind of tracking transmitter that happens to be using GPS as well, but don't blame GPS for that.
Something that doesn't seem to be getting much attention, even in New York papers, is that the cabbies foot the bill for these new systems. There are four approved companies they must choose from, and the average cost is $20/week. Having your job magically give you a new bill for $80/month isn't cool no matter how you look at it.
Not only that, but the systems already installed in cabs now by leasing companies trying to be ahead of the game have been reported to be flaky and unreliable. When you're an "approved" company by the combination of the NYC government and the TLC you don't really need to have a system that works to compete for the easy money.
So drivers lose money, these four companies who were picked by a process that wasn't transparent in the least gain money, and customers get a system that doesn't even reliably help them second guess a driver who very likely does know where he's going. Pathetic.
I think you need to get rid of your tinfoil hat.
Dollar coins don't contain RFID chips, and paper bills certainly don't either. Worse, Americans for some reason have pretty overwhelmingly rejected dollar coins.
But even if these things did contain RFID chips, these can only be read at very close range. How does this link you to that particular coin? If you buy a cup of Starbucks (please don't, it's inconsistent crap; get some other brand), and get a dollar coin in your change, and then hop in a cab and pay the cabbie with your dollar coin, how on earth does that enable any type of tracking of individuals? At best, if these merchants actually swiped these RFID-enabled coins past a government reader at every transaction, the most they would figure out is that some people are going to Starbucks and then getting in a cab.
But again, this would require the government to install RFID readers at every merchant location. This couldn't be done secretly, and if things get to the point where the government is tracking us that closely, instead of hiding behind the telecom and credit companies, then it's time to break out the guns and start shooting government officials indiscriminately. I don't see this happening.
I cannot tell you how much I would love a taxi strike. Like some significant portion of NYers, I only take cabs in ridiculous emergencies (and even in those cases, I'll usually call a gypsy instead of a yellow cab). So, for me, this means like 60% of the city's traffic will vanish.
Forget congestion pricing, I'm going to have some peace and quiet immediately as long as nobody caves on this damn strike!
You should read slashdot more.
Apparently the NSA was all concerned about the RFID chips in Canadian twonies just a while back.
Of course, it was all a farce, but trusting that a commercial enterprise won't use private information for nefarious purposes is like believing you can drive while stoned.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Apparently the NSA was all concerned about the RFID chips in Canadian twonies just a while back.
And of course it wasn't real. Probably because putting RFIDs in coins would be stupid, pointless, and expensive. Hell, if you encase an RFID chip in a metal coin, how would it work anyway? Doesn't that make a pretty effective Faraday cage? Sounds like someone at the NSA was incompetent.
Of course, it was all a farce, but trusting that a commercial enterprise won't use private information for nefarious purposes is like believing you can drive while stoned.
Who's talking about commercial enterprise? We were talking about the government tracking people here, not commercial enterprise. But that's pretty silly too. How exactly is one commercial company going to get everyone else to share data with them so they can track people? Companies aren't known for being all that great at working together. And even if they could somehow, who cares? It's just going to generate a lot of useless data for their Marketing department to play with. The company that doesn't waste money on such crap will have lower prices and will outcompete.
I honestly could care less if Home Depot somehow tracked that I was also shopping at Lowe's. What are they going to do, send men with guns to my home? That's a real concern with government intrusiveness, not with commercial intrusiveness.
We are grateful nobody cares about our speaking English ability and/or comprehension, and thank Allah because knowing how to maneuver a mule in Islamabad is very similar to driving a cab in NYC.
This is just an attempt to track a significant proportion of the Muslim population of NY.
{sigh} would it REALLY be so hard for Slashdot to filter out that particular domain?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I hate cabbies. NYC cabbies have gotten so bad over the past 10 years that I bought a car instead. They don't know where to go, they refuse to take you places they don't want to go - because they would rather a shorter fare for the initial minimum, or they'd rather land somewhere easier to find the next fare, or they don't know their way around, or they're a jerk. They're even worse drivers than ever before. I could go on an on, but that's not my point.
The point is that cabbies are right about this conflict. They could be safer with GPS, but they don't want their every move to be tracked: one of the few perks of being a cabbie is freedom of movement and privacy from "the boss". But most importantly, they are the ones who are being required to pay for all these new devices. Which bad passengers will smash, as they already have, and which cabbies will have to replace at their own cost. Not the fleets they work for, which make practically all the money, but the drivers themselves.
If NYC forces them to do this, the few with any self respect will leave. The ones who will shut up and take it will be the worst cabbies around. Even worse than the current low average.
And for what? So the City can make a few more bucks playing crappy, annoying ads to us? That the cabbie has to hear a thousand times a day, every day? So the City can spy on us, too, cross-referencing our credit cards with the GPS and probably audio (and maybe video) bugs inside the cars? Bloomberg is putting cameras everywhere, connected to probably the biggest database this side of the NSA. Probably part of the NSA system that's spying on us, whether justified by "traffic congestion" or "security" or "counterterrorism" or now, "protecting the cabbies".
This system is bogus. Even sleazoid cabbies are sickened by it. We shouldn't do it. Our civil liberties are often under the most serious threat for everyone when the undesirables scream about their own early sacrifice to the loss of liberty. This time it's us trapped in the metal box with them, in the same boat. We shouldn't let Big Brother use our cab rides to rationalize screwing all of us.
--
make install -not war
Over time, those profiles become amazingly complete - all it takes is one little leak of information between stores and zip, the entire history you have at each store is merged into a single profile. Now, those supermarkets don't care about (or pay for) their customer's full jacket, but that information is right there in the database just waiting for someone to purchase it (like the FBI, which has outsourced a lot of its investigation procedures in a surprisingly effective sidestep around the constitution).
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I know three of my friends who all got down their cab simultaneously at the end of their trip, and the driver drove off with all their baggage that had expensive stuff like laptops. For some reason, they couldn't note down his plate number, nor did they have any other information. May be the bad guys think they can't do such a thing if there's a GPS?
Full disclosure: I lived in Manhattan for 12 years If you don't know you're getting ripped off by a cabbie, then you probably don't know how to use a GPS either...
Oh, well okay then. If the government promises not to abuse its power then we should trust it.
So we're done here right?
Based on your logic, (a) you are either not a native New Yorker, (b) you are making more money than you should, (c) you are one of the idiots who for-what-ever phobic reason can't take public transportation but complain about the traffic, (d) all of the above.
Next time take the fucking subway/bus/LIRR/PATH, stop using the cabs, and keep the car in the garage.
Have the GPS on when the meter is on, and turn off GPS tracking when the meter is off! How hard can this possibly be? All it needs is to kill the power to the GPS unit when the meter is off and then they are free to do what they want where they want. On a side-note: Why do any /. users care? Have they come out of the basement yet?
I would suggest that the Taxi drivers have something to hide -- say ripping off of tourists -- if they're this much against this technology. And if they want to strike, the City of New York should consider taking away their "Badges" -- which are the immensely valuable permission they have to operate a taxi in the first place. It's like taking away copyrights from the RIAA for misuse. Such a threat would likely end the strike in its tracks, or every current and future RIAA lawsuit.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
NYC cabbies suck, period. Give them a destination in Brooklyn and watch them get lost if it is not Ocean Parkway. I've had numerous cases where cabbie doesn't know where he's going, tries to convince you that he's brought you to the place you've asked (even though it's not nearly the case!) and only if you argue with him ASKS THE LOCALS (!) how to ge to the destination (if you don't happen to know how the hell to get out of the place he's brought you to); goes extra milage (because of incompetence) AND asks for a tip ! Next time I'm taking a cabbie, I'm giving them a GoogleMaps printout, unless they install this system.
Your employer, if it is a private employer at least, may watch you as closely as they like. They can listen in on your phone calls (call centres often do this and they warn the callers it happens), they can read your e-mail in a company account, they can sit in your office and watch you do your work if they like.
This is because it is their property, thus their rules. It would be the same deal if you were at my house, using my computer. If I wanted to, I'd be free to sit and watch what you did, and go over the router logs later. My property, my rules.
Now that doesn't mean they can access things that don't belong to them, for example if you log in to your bank to check your account at work, your employer can't capture that information and use it to log in to your bank, that's illegal.
But in general, you have no expectation of privacy from your employer at work in the US. Most employers give their employees a measure of privacy, as they realise that if you are an asshole about it, you will find people just unwilling to work for you.
- The deal (for the GPS hardware and service) has been contraced to a vendor whose CEO is the President of the taxi garages' association.
- The association's Vice President for Business Development is the former First Deputy Commissioner of the TLC (NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission).
- The GPS vendor's Vice President of Operations is the TLC's former Deputy Commissioner of Safety and Emissions, the TLC officer in charge of all vehicle related issues.
No joke, look it up on google."Seeing themselves being observed, even by themselves caused subjects to pause longer in front of bowl, and more subjects obeyed the sign. Even the thought of being seen kept them from breaking that rule."
Hmmm. Now all we need to do is apply the same principle to P2P and the ISP's bandwidth problem is solved.
Weird, it was the first one I'd ever been in.
I kinda liked it because you could pay with any of those rfid credit card things as well as swiping a regular card. Fast and convenient!
I didn't like it because the cabbie was like "Don't you have cash?" . And he still made me sign the receipt after using the rfid thingy.
But yeah, I guess I don't care about privacy as much as convenience and new technology!
Most taxicubs I have used in the last year have had a GPS device, but I have never seen it being used for good purpose. In one occassion, the driver had a working GPS device, I told him where I was going, and he said I should tell him what streets to take as he didn't know where it was; he didn't touched the GPS at all, so I wonder why he paid for it. The result for me was lost performance, as I always use a laptop working when inside taxis, but with that driver I had to forego working in order to be able to tell him where to turn left or right. The main bottleneck in having a good taxi service is the driver's lack of professionalism, not the lack of cool gadgets. What we urgently need is educational programmes for taxi drivers.
Mandatory GPS (for taxis now and us later), yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and end this nonsense.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
I rode in a taxi last night and asked the driver if he was striking next week. He said it was because they were adding a 5% surcharge to the driver if the customer pays with a credit card. On top of this, he said, they were making money off the advertising on the new 8" screen installed in the divider. Who 'they' are I'm not sure -- either the Taxi and Limousine Commission or a third-party vendor who is installing the GPS and the credit card tech. It WAS nice to be able to view the GPS while the ride was in progress. Although if you live here, you probably know your way around, and if you're a tourist, you would still have no idea if the driver is taking the quickest route.
As a passenger, I may not want MY route tracked either. Yeah, there will always be records of my start and end points, but not necessarily of every stop between -- unless a GPS is tracking the cab.
ISTM that a reasonable compromise would be that the GPS could be turned off by passenger request. The cabbie could also be free to suggest when this is in the passenger's best interests.
As to dishonest cabbies, well, they'll just find some way around it anyway.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Who pays for it? I don't know how it works in NY, but in DC, every time some new device is mandated, the money comes out of the driver's pocket. Sucks to lose hundreds of dollars for something they don't even want in the first place.
Anyone who has ever driven in Midtown Manhattan with a GPS unit, even with a rooftop antenna, knows that it's impossible to get an accurate and reliable satellite fix.
GPS on Cabbies is a great idea.
... For example next to the walking path at the Edmonds Skytrain station in Burnaby ... when there is a McDonald's restaurant with a clean public washroom only 2 minutes away!
... taking short trips but denying customers who need to travel out of the downtown core. In Vancouver you must get into the cab before you say where you are going ... or risk eating their dust as they say no and take off. And don't you dare mention that you are paying by credit card until after you get to your destination! I've seen cabbies get infuriated over not being paid in cash. But screw them, I always pay by credit card ... I won't enable them to skip out on their taxes by not reporting the cash they bring in.
... but they usually don't.
... he is free to worship whatever myth he wants, if a job is not compatible with the religous choices he's made then he should have chosen another line of work!
Personally I think it should be on the cabbies themsevles, and the car.
Here in Vancouver BC, Canada, our cabbies SUCK MAJOR ASS. The cabbies are openly fighting against the measures the city is taking to ensure fair customer service for our citizens and tourists.
GPS tracking would expose how the cabbies will scam you any chance they can by taking indirect routes. It would prove that cabbies violate all posted speed limits.
Tracking the cabbies so closely would expose the locations where they all gather to take a shit in the bushes
The tracking system would help expose how the bastard cabbies illegally refuse service
Of course the GPS system won't help with other problems with Vancouver cabbies. People with certified guide dogs are often denied by the cabbies for religious reasons. They are required to stay with the customer until another cab arrives to take the person
Apparently Allah has no sympathy for people trying to get through their lives without their eyesight. Somehow when a Muslim person freely chooses to become a cab driver, knowing exactly what the job will require of him, he can somehow still be excused from serving some of the people who need him the most for religious reasons! There is no infringement of religious freedoms happening
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
I would assume that if the cab isn't yours you don't have a right to complain about it having GPS. The employer doesn't care where you are, they just want to make sure their vehicles aren't being misused.
A few years ago, the TLC made a deal with the cabbies. The TLC would raise the fares in exchange for the cabbies installing the GPS and credit card machines. Basically, the cabbies are trying to welsh out of the deal by keeping the higher fare but not installing the tech. I think the TLC should stop pussyfooting with them and tell them if they strike, the TLC will lower the fair _and_ still make them install the tech.
My father owned a couple of taxi cabs for a while. The way it works is that somebody owns the cab. The cab is leased to a dispatch company. The dispatch company staffs the cab with a driver. The driver performs the duties assigned and reports fees collected and distances back to the dispatch. The dispatch pays the driver and retains a portion of the money for themselves. The remainder is paid to the actual owner of the vehicle who is also responsible for paying for vehicle repairs which are performed and coordinated by the dispatch company.
And here is where human nature steps in and makes your 15 minute airport cab fare a whopping $60.00 when it should be $10.00... Both the dispatch and the driver strongly tend to be unethical people. (Do not bother replying with "all people are good" propaganda, I have enough experience to know otherwise. "Well, my dad is an honest driver/dispatcher" is also a waste of time as, yes, I'm generalizing. It's a perfectly valid way of dealing effectively with real problems; get over it.)
The driver picks up fares which it does not report. The driver also misrepresents how much was collected from the clients so that they keep the unaccounted funds. This of course reduces the dispatch's profit. The dispatch in turn does two things: It attempts to pay the driver less; increasing the likelihood of the driver exhibiting immoral behavior. The dispatch also underhandedly reports vehicle malfunctions that are either not entirely necessary or possibly don't exist in order to get a bigger slice of the pie by getting the owner to pay them a bigger chunk of the pie by either performing unnecessary work or no work at all with phantom papers.
So f*cking boo-hoo to anybody that claims "My employer shouldn't know where I am and what I'm doing on their time." Part of agreeing to be employed is to be responsible to the company and you have an obligation to prove you are performing those responsibilities professionally.
I have no sympathy for the drivers who claim invasion of privacy. The only reason they care is that it inhibits their ability to engage in criminal behavior. I would similarly argue that the dispatchers should have a "GPS" system attached to their shenanigans as well so that they fulfill their obligations to their employers and clients. The owners should be "GPSed" too in order to make sure they are providing a safe reliable vehicle for the customers.
Basically everybody should be held accountable for their responsibilities and these drivers' complaints are about nothing other than being able to continue avoiding such accountability.
And if you still think I'm wrong, think about your last taxi ride on a trip. Did you fall safely asleep in the cab or think "I love cabs; I'd pay double for this fantastic service and I wish this driver handled personal finance planning too." Or, like all of us did you keep an eye on the meter and occasionally think "Is this really the shortest route. I thought the hotel was much closer?" While, yes, there is a huge fallacy in this argument it none the less describes a valid doubt that is the result of rampant corruption in such a system.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Cabbies do illegally refuse to serve people going to certain neighbor hoods as they have known from past experience that their life and property is in danger and people simply walk way to their place without paying fare. So i wont bash them. So many softwares are not out there for linux/64 bit etc why ? its not feasible. .lets not screw them with all that crap. They already run into trouble a lot with people with no jobs and nothing to do other than calling 311.
As for as GPS is concerned it should be introduced as a provision and free of cost since there is advertisement. mandating this is like being big brother for no reason. if a customer needs GPS then better call a Car Service, Limousine or pick the cab with GPS
the most important this cabs need is a laptop charging hookup so we can work on laptop or at least charge it
Whenever you hail a cab, do NOT fall asleep, unless you wanna be overcharged. These guys know most customers aren't total idiots, so they refrain from driving you in circles.
However, if you happen to be drunk or sleepy and take a nap, it lowers their inhibitions and they're more likely to cheat you. I know because I've had this happen a couple of times. What usually costs $20 ended up costing about $30. I was asleep so about the only thing I could do was complain, pay, and leave.
eTrade SUCKS
I've spent a lot of time in NYC, and I know my way around. I have never had a taxi intentionally take any route other than the most direct route without asking me first.
A few times, I've had drivers take a wrong turn. They have always realized that they screwed up (they're human, too), apologized, and turned off the meter.
I have never had a dishonest NYC taxi driver.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I am happy to answer questions Slashdotters may have about the new Tech Enhancement systems. Calling it "GPS" really gives the impression it is something that it is not.
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The Taxi and Limousine Commission has been collecting this data for decades, but in paper form. By law, every NYC taxi driver must keep a record of all fares during their shift, including pick up point, drop off point, the amount of the fare, and the time of the fare. The new systems automate this process and put the data into a usable format (versus illegible handwriting). Credit card data that is sent to the TLC is limited to "passenger paid via credit card" or "passenger paid via cash" and the amount of the fare, including the tip amount (our data shows that the average tip given by someone paying by credit card is 21% versus about 12% for the cash tips.)
Furthermore, no data at all is collected when the taxi meter is in the "off duty" position. So, if someone owns their own cab and is using it for private use (to take their family to the beach, for example), no data at all is collected unless the meter is engaged.
Electronic Trip Sheet data is also a 'snapshot' of the pickup point and dropoff point, not a continuous recording of the position of the vehicle. We can't tell if they are speeding, for example. We also can't tell if they took the shortest vs. the most efficient route, only how long the trip was and how many miles it was.
It also does NOT provide directions to the passenger or driver (this was not included because feedback from drivers was that they did not want anything that would encourage 'backseat driving' from passengers), but it does display a realtime map of the vehicle's position when the meter is on.
Drivers do not pay for these systems. The owner of the medallion (who may or may not be the driver or owner of the car) is responsible for all installation costs. The TLC sets the maximum lease fees that owners may charge drivers. The lease fees are currently frozen and were not adjusted to help owners recoup installation costs. To the contrary, drivers were given several fare increases recently to improve their incomes.
There are actually FOUR different systems available to owners, each with different costs and features. Owners are free to choose any of the four and they sign contracts with the vendor of their choice. There was a lot of competition and real differences between the systems in terms of content and the types of tech available (large vs. small screens, RFID vs. swipe, etc.) The TLC did require that all systems provide a display screen for passengers, a text messaging system for drivers, accept major credit cards, and display a map.
As far as the issue of "employer" versus "employee", it's complex. Some taxi drivers own their medallion (which confers the right to pick up passengers on the street) and their vehicles. Some taxi drivers pay a daily or weekly lease fee to "rent" a medallion and a vehicle. Another group of drivers own their car but lease their medallion. Again, the owner of the medallion pays to install the system. It seems reasonable that the ultimate owner of the vehicle (in many cases this person is NOT the driver, but sometimes it is) has the right to receive data on the car's usage if they choose.
Finally, about 1,300 cabs (out of about 13,000) have these systems installed already and are operating without major problems. All NYC cabs will have them installed by early next year.
As a passenger, your privacy rights are the same as they are now if you pay by cash and the data collection for credit card usage is the same as if you used it in a store. TLC does not collect credit card numbers or any personally identifying information. As a driver, you are subject to the same data collection requirements as before, except via electronics instead of hard copy.
More information is available at http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/taxicab
I can't believe a local strike is being reported and a General Strike is not. OK, maybe this 9/11 strike will turn out not to be that big, but again I guess I would if media would give it fair coverage. There sure as hell are a lot of people very pissed off, waiting for an opportunity to show it.