Taxicabs of the United States

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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 1 Boston 2 Chicago 3 Denver 4 Miami 5 New York City 6 Pennsylvania 7 Pittsburgh 8 Washington, D.C. 9 Taxicabs by city 10 References 11 Notes 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Boston

This section requires expansion.

The City of Boston, Massachusetts issues hackney carriage licenses. The Boston Police Hackney Carriage Unit handles the regulation of the city's taxis.

To become a licensed taxi driver in the city of Boston one must report to Boston police headquarters located next to Ruggles train station on the MBTA Orange Line. The prospect must prove that he is legally eligible to work in the United States and must have had a Massachusetts drivers license for a minimum of one year.

[edit] Chicago

Taxicabs in Chicago are operated by private companies and licensed by the city. There are about seven thousand licensed cabs operating within the city limits.[1] 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 and 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.

City of Chicago taxicabs must accept credit cards, unless the taxicab is independently owned and operated - that is, the cab does not belong to an affiliation. You can tell that a cab belongs to an affiliation from the logo on the outside door of the cab. Another way to tell if the taxicab that you are riding in is an independently owned taxicab - and therefore not subject to the requirement to accept credit cards - is whether the taxicab has a "partition" between the passenger compartment and the driver. Partitions are mandated for all taxicabs, except independently owned and operated taxicabs.^[1]

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.)

Alsip	Bedford Park	Blue Island	Burnham	Calumet City	Calumet Park
Cicero	Des Plaines	Dolton	Elk Grove	Elmwood Park	Evanston
Evergreen Park	Forest View	Harwood Heights	Hines Hospital	Hometown	Lincolnwood
Merrionette Park	Niles	Norridge	Oak Lawn	Oak Park	Park Ridge
Riverdale	River Grove	Rosemont	Stickney	Summit

[edit] Denver

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Taxicabs are licensed by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) who regulates number of cabs, meter rates, and other rules and regulations.

Metro Transportation has PUC license for 492 cabs, Yellow has license for 300, and Freedom has license for 250.

Meter rates are as followed:

There is a flat 'flag drop' rate, which is $2.60 for Metro, $2.50 for Yellow. Once in the car, there are two rates: milage and time. Both are counted in $0.25 increments, and the dividing line between the two is 15mph. One can estimate their trip to cost $2.25 per mile for Metro Taxi, $1.80 per mile for Freedom Cab, and $2.25 per mile for Yellow Cab, and approximately $0.25 per red light on that trip, plus the drop rate.

There are three 'flat rate' trips set by the PUC:

Downtown Denver to Denver International Airport, or DIA to DT: $51 Denver Tech Center to DIA, or DIA to DTC: $57 Anywhere within the city limits of Boulder to DIA, or DIA to Boulder: $84

Other rates vary by company, and include per-person rates, luggage handling, and pets. Individual drivers are also known to set their own rates for extraneous circumstances, such as bodily fluids in the car, or smoking with a non-smoking driver, which some local police will assist the driver in enforcing if necessary.

Vehicles are generally owned, inspected, and maintained by the Taxi company, and leased to the drivers. Some of the companies have 'owner drivers,' who are drivers that own their own vehicle, pay a reduced weekly lease, and have to pay for maintenance on the vehicle. Freedom Cabs taxis are usually the oldest and the dirtiest thanks to the company's generous policy of allowing vehicles that are as old as the limits of PUC, which is 10 years, to be hacked-up as a cab. In contrast, Yellow Cab requires that the vehicle is not any older than 6 years for new hack-up. Freedom Cab taxis are colored bright purple; this color has attracted a substantial amount of business from the gay community.

[edit] Miami

Taxicabs in Miami and Miami-Dade County are regulated by the Miami-Dade County Consumer Services Department, from which taxi drivers must obtain a chauffeurs' license.^[2] Taxicabs must feature a decal or license number on the vehicle itself, as well as display the driver's picture ID and registration number inside the cab. All licensed taxicabs use SunPass transponders for electronic toll collection, added to passenger fares.^[3] Most Miami taxis are painted yellow, although a few smaller companies use white or black vehicles instead.

Fares to popular destinations are based on a zone system which covers Miami International Airport (MIA), downtown Miami, Miami Beach and other communities east of the Intracoastal Waterway in Miami-Dade County, Coral Gables, and (for trips to/from the airport only) the Port of Miami. For example, a trip from MIA to South Beach (approximately 11 miles^[4]) will cost passengers a flat fare of $32 (as of June 2009), inclusive of tolls.^[5] Fares outside of these zones (including to Fort Lauderdale and Broward County) are metered; the first 1/6 of a mile costs $2.50, with each additional 1/6 of a mile costing $0.40 (not including any road tolls). An additional $2 surcharge (automatically included in zone fares) applies for trips to MIA or the seaport. As an example, a trip from MIA to Dolphin Mall, a distance of approximately 9.2 miles^[6], would cost a passenger $27.25 (as of June 2009, including a $0.75 road toll and the $2 surcharge). A fuel surcharge may also be added to fares if gas prices reach $3.50 per gallon or more for three consecutive weeks. Tipping is not required, but is expected by most Miami taxicab drivers.^[3]

[edit] New York City

The taxicabs of New York City, with their distinctive yellow paint, are a widely recognized icon of the city. There are more than 13,000 taxis operating in the city, not including over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles.^[7] Taxicabs are operated by private companies and licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), a New York City government agency.

Only "medallion taxis," those painted in distinctive yellow paint and regulated by the TLC, are permitted to pick up passengers in response to a street hail. The TLC also regulates and licenses for-hire vehicles, known as “car services” or “livery cabs”, which are prohibited from picking up street hails (although this is less often enforced in outer boroughs) and are supposed to pick up only those customers who have called the car service's dispatcher and requested a car.

Medallion taxis are named for the official medallion issued by the TLC and attached to a taxi’s hood. The medallion may be purchased from the City at infrequent auctions, or from another medallion owner. Because of their high prices, medallions (and most cabs) are owned by investment companies and are leased to drivers (“hacks”). An auction was held in 2006, where 308 new medallions were sold. In the 2006 auction all medallions were designated as either hybrids (254) or handicap accessible (54) taxis.

Yellow cabs are often concentrated in the borough of Manhattan, but patrol throughout the five boroughs of New York City and may be hailed with a raised hand or by standing at a taxi stand. A cab's availability is indicated by the lights on the top of the car. When just the center light showing the medallion number is lit, the cab is empty and available. When the OFF DUTY inscriptions to either side of the medallion number are lit, the cab is off duty and not accepting passengers.

As of June 2006, fares begin at $2.50 ($3.00 after 8:00 p.m., and $3.50 during the peak weekday hours of 4:00–8:00 p.m.) and increase based on the distance traveled and time spent in slow traffic (40 cents for each one-fifth of a mile or 60 seconds of no motion or motion under 12 miles an hour). The passenger also has to pay the fare whenever a cab is driven through a toll. The taxi must have an E-ZPass tag, and passengers pay the discounted E-ZPass toll rates.^[8] Taxi drivers are not permitted to use cell phones while transporting passengers, even if they use a hands-free headset.

241 million passengers rode in New York taxis in 1999. The average cab fare in 2000 was $6; over $1 billion in fares were paid that year in total.^[9]

[edit] Pennsylvania

Unlicensed taxicabs are found among the Amish of rural Pennsylvania. Old Order Amish do not drive, but will hire a van or taxicab for trips which they cannot use their traditional horse and buggy transportation.^[10]

[edit] Pittsburgh

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.^[11]

The issue of whether to legalize jitneys has been considered several times by Pennsylvania's Public Utilities Commission since at least 1975.^[12] Famed Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson wrote a play called Jitney, which was published in 1982.

[edit] Washington, D.C.

The District of Columbia recently changed from an antiquated, zone-based fare system to a conventional meter-based fare system beginning May 1, 2008.^[13] The rates are a $3 flag drop rate and 25 cents for every one-sixth of a mile after the first sixth of a mile traveled. There also will be a 25-cent charge for every minute spent stopped or traveling less than 10 mph. The snow emergency rate will be the regular fare plus 25 percent. Additional passengers will add $1.50 each to the fare, and there are various other typical surcharges for luggage, dispatch, etc. The maximum fare for all trips within the city is $19.

Many of the taxis are pale yellow or white. Some of the most common taxis in the city include Ford Crown Victorias, Ford Tauruses, some Mercurys, and even some Lincoln Town Car models. Most of the District's 6,500 to 7,000 cab drivers own their own vehicles; in fact, the District is the only region in the country where the majority of cabs are independently owned and operated.^[14]

Arlington County, as part of Washington Metropolitan Area, saw the first carbon negative, all-hybrid taxi fleet. Its founder and CEO, Hans Hess, was the 2008 winner of the "Visionary" category in the Greater Washington Green Business Awards hosted by the Washington Business Journal and the Greater Washington Board of Trade^[15][16].

[edit] Taxicabs by city

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

City	Taxi Certificates	Other
Atlanta, Georgia	1,600
Austin, Texas	669
Baltimore, Maryland	1,151
Boston, Massachusetts	5,500	and 10,000+ other vehicles for hire
Cambridge, Massachusetts	1,256
Chicago, Illinois	6,999
Columbus, Ohio	500
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
Orlando, Florida	1,200
St. Louis, Missouri	749 On-call + 184 Airport	120 Premium Sedans
San Francisco, California	1,381	71 of these are wheelchair accessible
Seattle, Washington	842	16 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

[edit] See also

Taxicabs by country

[edit] External links

• New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission