NYC Wants Ideas For "Taxi Technology 2.0"

An anonymous reader writes "New York City is soliciting ideas from the public about possible technology improvements for its 13,000+ fleet of taxis. TLC (the city agency in charge of cabs) is 'seek[ing] input and information on ways to enhance the technology systems in each taxicab for the benefit of passengers, drivers and owners alike.'"

Comments

Re:Frebreze?

[Loki_1929]

I'm also in favor of enhancing the smell of NYC cabs. Either invest in something which removes all odors from all environments or possibly introduce hygiene requirements for licensed cab drivers.

Ozone Generator

[Maniacal]

http://www.interstaterentals.net/id84.html

Nothing worse than a smelly cab driver on a hot summers day. Eliminate odors electronically and help repair that pesky hole in the ozone while you're at it :)

Electric Cabs

[Doc Ruby]

Make all new taxis run on 100% electric. NYC's electric power comes 40% from nuclear (Indian Point), the rest from high-efficiency (up to 85% in CCGT) natural gas plants. The resulting switch would cut a lot of the smog remaining in our fairly green city.

Oh yeah, make the cars amphibious so they can go around the bridges/tunnels bottlenecks that clog so much NYC traffic.

Re:Electric Cabs

[girlintraining]

Hey, reality called -- electric cars take time to charge (on the order of a few hours) and they only have a range of a hundred miles or so. For vehicles like taxis with such a heavy duty cycle, you have two options: Add more cars to the fleet to compensate for the lengthy charge times, or use something that can be refuelled quickly and has range similar to gas. Natural gas-powered is the only potentially viable alternative, and at that, the fuel density is still below that of gasoline. Don't just shout "Go green!" because it's politically vogue. It also needs to be economically feasible.

Re:Electric Cabs

[MBCook]

Actually for something as common as a NYC taxi, a battery swap setup could work VERY well. Drive into a little garage, they slide out your old battery pack and slide in a new one. Total time? A few minutes, roughly comparable to gad.

The problem with a battery swap is that it's extremely expensive and inconvenient to setup for a only handful of cars. That will be the problem in using it for consumers. But for a fleet the size of the NYC taxis, even if only 10-20% of the taxis used it the cost per taxi wouldn't be too much.

There is a lot to be said for totally electric, but you could go with an underpowered little gas or diesel motor like the Volt to help with "corner cases".

Re:Electric Cabs

[moosesocks]

Adding a small wrinkle to the problem is that NYC's electric grid is extremely taxed.

Although you'd be able to do clever things such as charging the batteries during off-peak hours, electrifying the taxi fleet would contribute even further to brownouts during the summer months.

Granted, these problems can all be fixed. However, it's a bit more involved than you might imagine.

Re:Electric Cabs

[LackThereof]

Even though most NYC taxis are in use 24 hrs/day, the drivers are not. Taxis already have to return to base at least 3 times a day to switch drivers. Just switch batteries when you switch drivers.

The catch would be getting a car company to invest in building these things, when they're going only going to sell a few thousand a year. Sure there's 13,000 cabs in New York, but they're only replaced at 3 year intervals. Most other metro areas allow much older cabs, and don't have nearly as many.

This is why Checker Motors went under in the 80's - there is just no way to sell enough taxicabs in America to pay for the R&D costs, not to mention factory tooling. The incremental design and tooling updates required to keep up with current safety and emissions regulations, not to mention ever-changing customer expectations, completely kill the business model.

Re:Electric Cabs

[Doc Ruby]

The cabs all return to their garages every 12 hours. There are only under a dozen gas stations in Manhattan, amidst 2+ million people and hundreds of thousands of cars, so they refuel at garages.

Gasoline cabs get a lot less than their rated city mileage in NYC, because they constantly accelerate and decelereate. Which probably puts them down around 15MPG tops, but which makes regenerative braking electric cars really shine. A 15 gallon tank gives them 225 miles on a tank. That's less than the 300mi an electric car gets.

Cab drivers usually don't own their cars (which typically cost about $50K apiece after they're fitted to legal requirements). But they do pay for gas. So they'll be very happy to get cheaper mileage with less refueling stops.

Re:Electric Cabs

[Doc Ruby]

No, a "politician's idea" is the kind like yours that don't even take into account the other comments posted before it which debunk it.

NYC cabs are bought by the fleet, not the driver. The cabs typically cost about $50K or more when up to legal requirements. A new Prius costs abour $30K. The driver does pay for fuel, so the cheaper electric would save the drivers money, and make the overall business better.

Electric car batteries don't suffer from batteries wearing out so fast. But all cars wear out. Gasoline cars require a lot more servicing to their violently active parts.

Batteries can be swapped in and out at the garage instead of refueling with gas when they return as NYC cabs currently do (nearly no gas stations in Manhattan).

NYC cabs almost never use their trunks. But there's no reason the electric cars can't have good trunks. Current models of the size we'd use for cabs don't suffer from that limitation.

You evidently are talking about a different NYC and different battery car tech than actually exists, while being smug and conceited about it. You should run for office.

Re:Electric Cabs

[Fred_A]

Hey, reality called -- electric cars take time to charge (on the order of a few hours) and they only have a range of a hundred miles or so.

Nah, every other day we get an article right here about this new battery design that charges in minutes and yet we never see them on the market.
Obviously there is a secret plot by highly organized taxi drivers who don't want to invest in new cars and who suppress new technology (if you work in energy research, remember never to take a cab).

Re:Ask Brad Templeton, Chairman of EFF

[jonwil]

Never happen. The moment the taxi authority even starts to think about driverless cabs, you will get EVERY taxi driver in NYC walking off the job (causing chaos) or worse, using their cabs to block up the streets or blockading the authorities office or both.

Suggestion: Customer experience

[Chairboy]

Technically, the cabs are already great at what they do. They quickly and reasonably cheaply (considering) get you from point A to B. But the biggest problems I've had with cabs have had less to do with tech than human factors.

For example: Advertisements. Someone thought it would be a good idea to fill cabs with loudspeakers and screens that subject the passenger to one-way advertisements. I'm annoyed by this because A: It's unpleasant to be so aggressively marketed to and B: I didn't think of it first. If there was a way to equip cabs w/ a basic data terminal that used GPS to bring up relevant data regarding where I was (or services near my destination), that would be brilliant.

Also, the credit-card issue is slowly being addressed. It's gotten much better, but everyone still runs into some cabbie who makes a big show about pulling a manual card-swipe out of the trunk. Give me a debit-style terminal in the back seat like a freakin' grocery store.

Instead of political issues like electric cabs, let's see an improvement on the end-user experience. The rest will happen on their own as business owners start seeing a financial advantage.

Re:jkhsad ass7e bcadjh

[jd]

If the TARDIS couldn't translate the language of the Beast on the Impossible Planet, what makes you think any human-designed translator could manage the feat?

Re:jkhsad ass7e bcadjh

[Legrow]

Or how about a GPS system mounted in the back, where you could input the address you wanted to go to?

It would have the added benefit of showing you the trip you were taking and your expected arrival time; it'd also give visitors a way to make sure that the cab driver isn't taking a longer way for a higher fare.

That's an easy one...

[parachutepenguin]

$$$$ 13,000 Cash Cabs $$$$

Cash Cab

Electric + GPS + SmartPhone Apps + Bike Friendly

[copponex]

First, make many of them electric. Two hundred mile range vehicles are possible today, and according to this, there are 800 million miles driven each year by 13,000 taxis, which is 170 miles, according to my calculator and my brain. Beware: my brain is currently on pain meds from dental work. Charge all the unused electrical capacity of the grid at night to local Taxi stations, install some flywheel charging systems or a simple battery swapping system, and it will help us develop the next generation of electric vehicle infrastructure.

Next, equip all taxis with good GPS. Put a screen in the back so the passenger knows they're not being taken the long way or the wrong way. Use this data to calculate traffic and anticipate passenger needs based on events, weather, holidays, etc. Allow cabbies to see each other on the GPS, so they know if they are crowding certain areas unwittingly. Allow people to log into a website to see real time anonymized traffic flow information.

Give out decent prize money for Smartphone apps that become public domain. Allow a person to stand at a street corner and hail a cab by pressing a button, or request a timed pickup with a non-refundable deposit charged to their credit card.

And finally, make all cabs bike friendly, with a quick and secure way to attach two bikes to each one. This will allow those in a hurry to bike to work, catch a cab to a movie, and then bike home.

Re:Touch Sceen and Pay System

[Anonymous Coward]

And there is no way to implement the tip system that is used in restaurants? Don't be silly. It merely requires you to actually acknowledge what you are paying before processing it - the advantages of a taxi-card over Visa/MC/AMEX/etc are that the processing is done in house and therefore cheaper or that you can use a limited balance debit card and not worry about someone hacking the reader so much.

They've done this

[weston]

There *are* vehicles that get priority over other traffic. In fact, they chain groups of cars getting this priority together for maximum efficiency, and they put in lots of seats so many people can ride in each car.

Unfortunately, the way they solved the prioritization issue means that they only run on fixed routes throughout the city. However, there's a lot of these routes, and so most locations have one within ready walking distance. Scheduled pickup and dropoff times are usually pretty frequent. You should check it out.