New York Taxi Strike, GPS, and What Can Be

I stood on Third Avenue in New York today, trying to hail a cab, and wondering why there seemed to be so few. Well, it's because about one-third of them are on strike to protest the city's insistence that each taxi install a GPS tracking system.

The opposition comes from one of the taxi drivers' unions, which doesn't like the fact that the system will cost drivers (who often own their own cabs and have to pay for improvements like this) some $6,000 a car.

But in the long run, these things could reshape the way taxis work in a big city. The GPS can track the taxis, which in the short run is supposed to help with things like drivers' logs (which they now have to do by hand), lost items (you could figure out which cab you left your wallet in) and safety (press a discrete button if you're being robbed and the police could find and trail the cab). I asked one driver who picked me up today his opinion, and he was all for GPS, saying he thought it would make him safer.

In the longer term, imagine the GPS information being opened up and available on a smart phone screen. Standing on a corner in New York, you could see on a map the nearest available cabs. If they're clustered on a street a block away, you might want to walk there to hail one. Or perhaps you could click on one of the dots on the map to let that taxi know you're nearby and looking for a ride. The possibilities could get exciting.

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