Uber-related question: why don't cab drivers use GPS?
 

A comment on another thread got me thinking:

Every Uber driver we have ever had had a phone mounted on the dashboard displaying a mapping app. Some referred to it more than others, but each one had one, because that's what they use to manage fares.

Why don't cab drivers do this? I have actually never seen a cabbie in the US use GPS or a mapping apps or anything of the sort, even when they say they don't know where they are going. And while it's true that they are not required to have a phone to do the job, the way Uber drivers are, you can't tell me they don't all have phones. So what gives?

It seems like a simple thing cabbies could do to improve service...

The vast majority of cabs I've used in the last 4 or 5 years have had GPS

Many cabs are owned by fleets - not the driver. And they made decide to not to use GPS due to cost. If the driver owns the car they may have one (I have seen some driver in NYC with them) and car service drivers always have them.

Most cab drivers spend the vast majority of their time in Manhattan or to/fro the airports and rely on passengers to direct them to specific places in the outer boroughs.

Well, maybe it's a localized thing. I have taken cabs in Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Tampa and probably a couple of other places I'm forgetting, and talking only of the last year, not one had a mapping app or GPS that the driver consulted. And of all the rides, at least half involved minutely directing the driver or some back and forth about where our destination really was versus where he insisted it was.

I understand not having a GPS device in the cab, but why cabbies won't use their phones when they are uncertain remains a mystery.

Which is why I started the thread, thinking maybe there's some sort of rule governing cell phone use in cabs?? Or maybe they don;t have unlmited data plans on their personal phones, as many people don't, and are loathe to use them? Even when a tip is on the line??

Every single cab driver I have used in Boston in the last year has used his phone GPS to check on traffic, in between animated discussions with friends in Wolof, Urdu, Gurkali, Moroccan Arabic, or whatever.

I've been going to and from Logan, so it is not like the route itself is difficult.

The cab driver I had from Logan couldn't find the Loew's Boston, lol.

DC taxi drivers use their phones.

OK, never mind! Must be my karma.

I actually didn't know there was a Loew's in Boston though I have stayed at their Santa Monica and Philadelphia properties. Must be some New Thing, and you know how Bostonians feel about that!

Out of curiosity., I just looked it up.

You should have told him it was the old YWCA Residence. Then he would have known for sure. It's right near where the Area A Police Station used to be, just a couple of blocks from the Statler Hilton.

:-)

<some New Thing, and you know how Bostonians feel about that!>
LOL!

I gathered that it was the actual police station, but perhaps not. If I had known what else to call it besides the Loew's, I would have! I gave him the address and we played a few rounds of nah, that can't be, but he found it fairly quickly in the end.

It is the police station. They closed another one and consolidated them, problem ten or twelve years ago, or "just the other day" in Boston.

<i>I have taken cabs in Boston</i>

In Boston, they don't use them so that they can rip off tourists. They can't take you from the airport to Cambridge via the Ted Williams if the GPS is telling you to take the Sumner.

My last three Uber rides in Boston, all the drivers used the GPS on their phones, with voice knsteuctions. We over ruled a few of those.

Ironically NYC cabs have a built-in GPS, so there routes can be traced, if there is a complaint about getting ripped off. But the driver does not have access to map the route of a specific ride.