The modern city-dweller takes fewer things for granted than the taxi. As ubiquitous a filthy sidewalks and skyscrapers, the taxi is an essential component of modern, urban life. Taxis are ships that pass, en mass, through the night and day and afternoon. Depending on which city you live in and what part of the globe you call home, there are generally four kinds of taxicabs.
Hackney carriages are available for hailing and can be hired on the spot. Private hire vehicles, known as minicabs, are also available. Private hire taxis are available only by pre-booking - one does not simple jump into one off the street. That could be construed as trespassing and get you fined or booked into lockup. Jitneys, or taxibuses, are a type of bus/taxicab hybrid that operates on preset routes like a bus. Limousines are also a kind of taxi, in a roundabout way, but they are exclusively available.
The first service we can document was started by a man called Nicolas Sauvage in Paris, and dates from 1640s. His vehicles were called fiacres, since the major vehicle depot in the city was near a shrine to St. Fiacre. In French, this term is still used to describe horse drawn carriages for hire. The Hackney Carriage Act was passed in London in 1635 and was the first legislated control on vehicles for hire in English. Eventually hansom cabs replaced older vehicles due to being faster and safer.
The meter set the taxi world on fire when it was introduced. The first modern taxicab equipped with a meter was the Daimler Victoria, built in 1897. Gas powered taxicabs started operating in Paris in 1899, in 1903 in London, and in 1907 in New York. During the twentieth century, taxicabs became more and more common, partially due to the integration of two way radios into them in the 1940s. This worked more efficiently than the previous call box method. In the 1980s, computer aided dispatching came into being, and was a significant innovation.
Though cabbies are expected to have a strong knowledge places, more and more taxicab companies are beginning to use GPS vehicle tracking devices. These devices are meant to allow the driver to concentrate on driving, minimizing the risk of accidents. Despite the availability of this technology, some areas that have the option of using GPS tracking do not make use of it. London's black cab taxis, for instance, still rely on strict training of their drivers instead. Minicabs, on the other hand, can't get enough GPS tracking devices.
Most professional taxis are equipped with GPS vehicle tracking systems. This allows them to more safely navigate the streets and tend to passengers. GPS vehicle tracking systems are also very popular with civilian drivers.
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