I recently discovered a website dedicated to “A Day In The Life” of a NYC Taxi cab.
The website shows trips taken by the taxi (although the routes are the most likely being the only data they have is “Start” and “End” points) as well as tips (only from CC riders, not cash) and Surcharges/Taxes that were charged.
I’ve actually spent a good amount of time watching this site, running through different cabs, and finding commonalities and observations…some of which are surprising:
- Taxi drivers may appear dumb (given their appearance of poor drivers and not speaking the native language much), but don’t judge a book by its cover…watch where they drive to when they want to pick someone up. They know the cities hotspots, and what times of day those places are most likely to be hopping with fresh fares.
- They don’t get much sleep…from the ones I ran through, I would say average sleep time was around 4-6 hours, usually between 2:30-6:30 in the morning. (Now, if I am not mistaken, taxi companies may use more than one driver per vehicle (provided they have the proper qualifications, of course) but that still shows a heck of a lot of use/wear & tear on these cabs.)
- I really want to be a taxi driver, even for just a day, at some point in my life.
Aviously 