And The Beat Goes On — To A Drummer Out Of Time

CABBIE ISMAIL Ibrahim has no problem with the idea of using the global-positioning devices and credit-card swipers that will be required technology in all city taxis by the end of the year.

The reality, however, is costing him money.

He’d been using the GPS for about a week when I talked with him. And let’s just say he has some complaints.

“The meter went blank on my way to Conshohocken,” says Ibrahim, who owns his cab, rents the required medallion and takes ride requests over a radio system run by All City Taxi.

“I tried to round off the fare. But the people thought I was trying to rip them off.”

When the GPS goes off, he said, the meter goes off. This also happened to Ibrahim a few days ago, when he logged onto the system at the beginning of a shift and got a message saying the system was temporarily unavailable.

So he tried offering flat rates to the customers who flagged him down, but they accused him of trying to rig the ride.

Frustrated, he called it a day - and lost a day’s fares.

“Riders don’t trust you,” he says. “If the system is down, they think you did it.”

Ibrahim seems like a straight-up guy, but I confess: I’d figure he was lying, too.

Riding cabs in this city has been a crapshoot for so long, a fed-up public won’t give a decent cabbie the benefit of the doubt, even when he deserves it…. Read Full Article Here:

Recently I asked my friend Ron Blount from Philadelphia how the forced installation of GPS tracking on Philly cabs was progressing. Ron’s report wasn’t good. Instead of being a tool to help the drivers earn and a boon to the customer it seems that Philly’s GPS implementation is still fraught with many problems, most of which are the fault of inept management. Some, however, now that the system has had field evaluation, reflect a a basic incompetence with the proper design of a GPS tracking system … especially if one wants to use GPS to gain a rapid ROI … and if you don’t want an ROI, why on Earth would you use GPS? Previous posts are here, and here and here:

GPS Tracking Management Issues:

• First and foremost, when thinking of a GPS system (or anything else that directly affects your worker’s pocketbooks) you must involve the workers in the decision-making process from the beginning. In Philadelphia’s case, most of the taxi drivers are independent businessmen … it’s un-American to impose a city agency’s will in this manner, as well as downright dumb business.
• Secondly, the folks who specify and procure the system must be above reproach. To allow a city employee to select the contractor and then jump ship to work for that contractor on the system he selected … sad.
• Third, just because you are a city agency had you have power doesn’t mean that using that power to impose your will is the best way to get things done. Just as a vendors “sells” a system to a client, GPS tracking can easily be sold to drivers if one focuses on the true benefits.

GPS Technical Issues:

• Number one issue is, there must be a back-up plan. Any system devised by man can fail, what differentiates good managers from the ranks of the also-rans is how the system “rides through” outages. If a system computes fares … which are the living of the drivers, the business income of the cab owners and the discretionary expenditures of the passengers, to have no plan to charge agreed upon rates during a GPS outage is inexcusable.
• Number two: GPS tracking is many things but one of the things it is not is an accurate odometer. I’ve written about that issue before in some detail here. Fair trading practices are legislated in every state and if I were a Philadelphia I would take this issue and run with it to Harrisburg. The Parking Authority may have a strangle hold on Philadelphia the may mayor Rizzo used to, but he’s long dead and so is any excuse for cheating the public … or the drivers.
• My last point ties in with the second. GPS also does not do well in the heart of a city … read about the “Urban Canyon Effect“. A properly designed system will have a`secondary, short-term means of navigation, such as a digital odometer and a heading sensor that can navigate (and measure) the cab’s progress during periods of bad GPS reception, system outages and act as a check on overall mileage to make sure the customer or the driver is not being cheated.

Frankly, I’m appalled at the way Philadelphia has mismanaged this system and how poorly the city government is serving its citizens (both taxi drivers and taxi riders typically fall in that group). If you ride taxis in Philly, if you ever plan to, or if you just hate to see bad government in action, here’s the folks to have a word with:

Philadelphia Parking Authority: 3101 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, Linda J. Miller 215-683-9675

Philadelphia Mayor’s Action Center: City Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19107, (215) 686-3000, Renee.R.Grundy@phila.gov