London Taxis

London Taxis are a way of travelling around London, London is a city filled with Black Cabs and taxis, that loads use, Taxis are useful for many. A people who have gone by rail, as not wanting to drivem, theatre goers, drunk people, and others. London has taxis, everywhere, indeed often its on TV programmes that are filming liveon London fore news broadcats, and famous people, and politicians use them. A taxi (sometimes called taxicab, cab, or hack) is a public transport service which conveys passengers between locations of their choice. (In most other modes of public transport, the pick-up and drop-off locations are determined by the service provider, not by the passenger.) Although types of vehicles and methods of regulation, hiring, dispatching, and negotiating payment differ significantly from country to country, some common characteristics exist.

A London black cab
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Vehicles

Taxi service is typically provided by automobiles, but various human- and animal-powered vehicles or boats are also used or were used historically. In northern Europe it is not uncommon for expensive cars such as the Mercedes-Benz to be the taxi of choice. Taxis in less developed places can be a completely different experience, such as the ancient French cars typically found in Cairo. In many cities, limousines operate as well, usually in competition with taxis and at higher fares.

Livery

In North America, taxi companies are often named according to their livery--that is, the colour of their vehicles. Thus, "Yellow Cabs" are painted yellow, "Checker Cabs" have a distinctive black-and-white or black-and-yellow checkerboard stripe around their bodies, "Blue and White Cabs" might have blue bodies and white roofs, and "Black Top" and "Red Top Cabs" would have black and red roofs respectively.

Regulation

Both taxis and drivers are regulated to greatly varying degrees in different places, from free-for-all to highly restrictive licensing schemes. In many countries, the number of taxis and the areas where they may operate are strictly controlled by a regulatory body. (Paradoxically, taxis are often most heavily regulated in wealthy, laissez-faire economies--as examplified by the strict systems in London and New York.) In such systems, a person must purchase a license or medallion if he or she wishes to own a taxi. In many jurisdictions, both owners and non-owning drivers of taxis are also tested and licensed by the police or the regulatory body.

Hiring

Taxis are often "hailed" or "flagged" on the street, either by a passenger as a taxi is driving by, or at a "taxi stand" (sometimes also called a "taxi rank", "cab stand," or "hack stand"). Taxi stands are usually located at airports, railway stations, and hotels, as well as at other places where large numbers of passengers are likely to be found. In some places--Japan, for example--taxi stands are arranged according to the size of the taxis, so that large- and small-capacity cabs line up separately. Passengers also commonly call a central dispatch office for taxis.

Dispatching

The activity of taxi fleets is usually monitored and controlled by a central office, which provides dispatching, accounting, and human resources services to one or more taxi companies. Taxi owners and drivers usually communicate with the dispatch office through either a 2-way radio or a computerized mobile data terminal. Before the innovation of radio dispatch in the 1950s, taxi drivers would use a special telephone at a taxi stand to contact the dispatch office. When a customer calls for a taxi, a trip is dispatched by either radio or computer to the most suitable cab. The most suitable cab may either be the one closest to the pick-up address (often determined by GPS coordinates nowadays) or the one that was the first to book in to the "zone" surrounding the pickup address. In offices using radio dispatch, taxi locations are often tracked using magnetic "pegs" on a "board"--a metal sheet with an engraved map of taxi zones. In computerized dispatch, the status of taxis is tracked by the computer system.

Fares

For the distance travelled, fares for taxis are usually higher than for other forms of transport (buses or trains). The fare often does not depend on the number of people travelling together in a taxi. Sometimes there is a system where strangers share a taxi and fares are per person. Fares are usually calculated according to a combination of distance and waiting time, and are measured by a meter, originally called a taximeter and the origin of the word "taxi." Instead of a metered fare, passengers sometimes pay a flat fare. In some countries, when demand is high--for instance, late at night--a taxi will pick up whoever offers the highest fare.

Famous taxis

London cabs, known as Hackney Carriages, are particularly famous on account of the specially constructed vehicles and the extensive training course ("the Knowledge") required for fully licensed drivers. London's cab drivers are even well-known for having developed an especially big hippocampus, a region of the brain where, among other things, information about locations is stored (this is likely the case with many other taxi drivers, as well--not just those of London).

Taxis were famously used for troop transportation during the First Battle of the Marne.

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Contents
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* 1 In transport
* 2 In television
* 3 In film
* 4 In music
* 5 Other uses

In transport

* Taxicab, a vehicle with a driver for hire which conveys passengers between locations of their choice
* Taximeter, a mechanical or electronic device installed in taxicabs
* Taxicab stand
* Share taxi, a mode of transport that falls between private transport and conventional bus transport
* Water taxi, a small boat that transports passengers on water
* Taxiing, the movement of an aircraft on the ground
o Taxiway, the paved surface on which an aircraft taxis
* Business jet, an air taxi or charter jet

In television

* Taxi (TV series), an American television comedy that aired from 1978 to 1983
* Taxi! (TV series), a British television series that aired from 1963 to 1964
* Taxi (Dutch TV series), a Dutch reality television show
* Taxicab Confessions, an HBO documentary series
* "Taxi" (CSI: NY episode), an episode of CSI: NY

In film

* Taxi Driver, a 1976 film directed by Martin Scorsese starring Robert de Niro and Jodie Foster
* A series of action-comedy movies written by Luc Besson, starring Samy Naceri and Frédéric Diefenthal:
o Taxi (1998 film), a 1998 film directed by Gérard Pirès
o Taxi 2, a 2000 sequel to the above film. Directed by Gérard Krawczyk
o Taxi 3, a 2003 sequel to the above films. Directed by Gérard Krawczyk
o Taxi 4, a 2007 sequel to the above films. Directed by Gérard Krawczyk
* Taxi (2004 film), a loose remake of the 1998 film. Directed by Tim Story
* Taxi!, a 1932 film starring James Cagney
* Taxi (1953 film), a 1953 film directed by Gregory Ratoff
* Taxi Number 9211, a 2006 Bollywood film directed by Milan Lutharia

In music

* "Taxi" (song), a song by A.R.Rahman
* "Taxi" a song by Harry Chapin
* Taxi (band), a Romanian pop band
* Taxi (Gibraltar band), a Gibraltarian pop rock band formed by former members of Melon Diesel
* Taxi (album), an album by Bryan Ferry
* "Big Yellow Taxi", a song by Joni Mitchell
* "Taxi Grab", a song by Jethro Tull
* "Joe le Taxi", a song by Vanessa Paradis
* "Tijuana Taxi", a song by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

Other uses

* TAXI (advertising agency)
* Taxi (chocolate), a chocolate biscuit
* Crazy Taxi (series), a video game series that involves driving a taxicab
* Taxis, an innate behavioral response by an organism
* Thurn und Taxis, a German Princely House
* TAXI (A&R), an American A&R company

A taxicab stand (also called taxi rank, cab stand, taxi stand, cab rank, or hack stand) is a queue area on a street or on private property where taxicabs line up to wait for passengers.

How stands work

Stands are normally located at high-traffic locations such as airports, hotel driveways, railway stations, subway stations, bus depots, ferry terminals, shopping centres, and major street intersections. Usually stands are marked by simple painted signs.

Stands generally work as a first-come, first-served queue, so that the first taxicab to arrive on the stand (the one at the front of the line) serves the first passenger to arrive, and as the first taxicab leaves, each taxicab behind it moves ahead one spot, with the last taxicab to arrive taking the last spot.

Around the world

Main article: Taxicabs by region

In some cities, such as London and New York, some older taxi stands are marked by special lamps with "TAXI" painted on the sides of them.

Some major stands are divided into separate queues. For example, at the Nagoya railway station in Japan, small- and large-capacity taxis line up separately; while at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai, short- and long-distance taxis use separate queues. In Hong Kong, different kinds of taxis line up separately, as some of their service areas overlap.