WEBVTT - Hailing the Robo Cab 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.080 Brought to you by Toyota Let's Go Places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.760 Forward Thinking Either and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.120 that looks at the teacher and says they paid paradise 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.720 and put up a parking lot. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.360 Lauren Vocal, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today, Yes, Joe, 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.400 we're going to start by reading out an email that 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.680 we got in reference to one of our most recent podcasts. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.600 It was an email from our listener Frank in New York. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:40.760 Or maybe it'd be better to stay Long Island, Long Island. 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:43.680 Oh goodness, Now, let's let's not do accents. It's too 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.040 early in the afternoon to do accents, you guys. Uh no, no, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.520 so so Frank rotein and said, Hi, guys, just listen 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.440 to part two of Mega Cities. Joe made a comment 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.920 that compelled me to share my experience and possibly blow 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.840 his mind as well as garner a little sympathy for me. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.400 His comment was and thing like, o MG, people actually 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.600 drive into New York City. Oh yes, Joe. Unfortunately a 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.160 lot of us are tortured on a daily basis. I 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.319 live on Long Island, about sixty miles from my job 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:19.119 in Lower Manhattan editorializing huh okay back. Although Jonathan only 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.959 lives three miles from his job, sixty miles is an 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.319 average commute around here, But the distance isn't really the issue. 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.760 The issue is time. It takes me three hours each 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.480 way every day. Talk about premature aging. It is literal torture. 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.920 Now many people would to spend their sympathy to make 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.360 the point that I must have or should have taken 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.080 the commuting time into consideration when I bought my house. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.520 I did. I bought my house in two and considered 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.440 the commute into Manhattan acceptable because it only took an 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.000 hour and twenty minutes, despite expanding all of the major 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.640 highways and implementing new strategies to ease traffic, the population 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.200 of Long Island in New York City having increased so 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.160 quickly that my commute time is more than doubled in 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.160 the twenty three years I've been doing this. No real 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.680 point to make here, just my two cents. I enjoyed 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.320 the show. Thank you Frank, Well, thank you Frank. That 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.680 was enlightening and a true nightmare to imagine. It was 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.519 like one of the better Stephen King short stories. Yeah yeah, 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.120 and uh, it takes me an hour to get to work, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.480 but that's because I walk. If I didn't walk, it 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.840 would take me like ten minutes to work, you know, 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.160 because he was saying, like, you know, three hours for 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.280 sixty miles, takes me an hour just to go three 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.839 but then I'm on foot. Well just sure, sure, but yeah, 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.160 I mean if you took, for example, a taxi, Yeah, 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.239 if I if I, if I decided to take a cab, 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.760 it would take me no time at all. Don't lie, Jonathan. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.639 Sometimes you call Uber. I have done that on occasion, 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.480 usually when the weather is particularly awful. Yeah, normally I 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.560 will walk it. But if if I am one exhausted 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.160 and it's ninety eight degrees outside in seventy humidity, yeah 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.760 I'm gonna call Uber. Or if it's pouring down rain, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:02:59.919 I'll call Uber. Otherwise I walk it. And I got 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.320 tell you. When I take Uber and I get in 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.560 an air conditioned vehicle and I am quickly whisked away 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.200 to my house in just ten or fifteen minutes, I 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.320 start to really reconsider my part priorities when it comes 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.600 to walking. Yeah. Yeah, all these car services are kind 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.000 of rad. Yeah, they totally are. I mean, it's and 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.000 it's one of those things that has developed quickly over 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.200 the past several years. And what led us to this 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.200 particular episode and the reason why Frank's message is so 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.400 is so pertinent, is we wanted to talk about this 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:41.360 concept of combining a couple of things we've talked about 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:46.360 in previous episodes. So, uh, we're talking mostly about autonomous vehicles, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.600 which we've covered multiple times on this show, and we're 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:55.040 talking about ways to improve dense urban environments so that 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.920 they are more pleasant to to work, play and live 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.880 in travel around in. Yeah. Yeah, And we've done at 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.200 least three episodes about autonomous cars and how they work. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.640 So if you want to hear a whole lot about that, 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.680 you can tune into Maximum over Clock and Lookamano Hands, 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:16.400 both of which are from March and Robot You Can 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.200 Drive My Car, which is by far my favorite episode 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.719 title to say out loud from November. Do we really 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.880 want to send people back to those March episodes? Yeah, 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.039 listen at your own risk. That was like the first 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.400 month we were doing the show, early early in the 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.280 in the whole deal. But that tells you how many 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.240 times we've talked about autonomous cars I mean those are 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.279 those are the ones that are expressly about autonomous cars. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.679 We also seem to mention them at least once every 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.919 month or so. Well, we do because I think we're 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.200 all three on record, and please feel free to disagree 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.320 as being pretty pro autonomous car. You know, like there 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.200 are a lot of emerging technologies that have pros and 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.400 cons things we can point out say, I don't know, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:58.800 you know that this could turn out bad. It's always 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.080 hard to tell what the full range of effects of 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.760 a new technology will be. With autonomous cars, I think 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.640 the motivation is there for adoption. I think they're going 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.840 to be overall beneficial in a pretty serious and noticeable way, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.760 and I think I want one. Yeah, they're they're provably 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.839 at this current stage, safer than human drivers and also 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.640 uh more fuel efficient exactly. Yeah. So, so just a 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.120 quick rundown on the benefits of autonomous cars, we've we've 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.080 kind of mentioned them here. For an autonomous car, you 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.880 can put sensors in every location around that car so 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.320 that it can it can completely sense its environment with 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.160 no blind spots. So that's already an advantage over a 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.200 human driver. Right. Also, it can pay equal amounts of 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.000 attention to all of those at the same time processing 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.600 all of that information, whereas as a human driver, you 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.480 are focused on pretty much a single direction, with maybe 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.159 some peripheral awareness of some other stuff that's going on, 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.880 but it's not your full focus. It can't be can 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.960 and look everywhere and it does. You can't look everywhere 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.120 and you don't, right, uh, And if you try, then 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.320 often bad things can happen. Maybe this is why Sherlock 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:13.480 Holmes doesn't drive out anywhere. Yeah, ever, because he's too 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.799 much stuff all the time. Yeah, Yeah, it's very possible. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.279 The automous cars can also react in a fraction of 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.599 the time it takes a human to react to the 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.960 same stimulus. So if there's an emergency situation where you 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.240 need to apply the break, a robotic car is going 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.440 to be able to do that more effectively and faster 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.240 than any human could. Um. And if the concentration of 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.800 autonomous cars is high enough on the road, it can 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.719 really help reduce traffic congestion. We've talked about that in 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.839 the past, where you don't even need to have every 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.200 car in the road be autonomous, you just need enough 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.599 of them to to create this, uh, this traffic flow 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.880 that's much more efficient and you have fewer traffic jams 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.479 as a result, at least according to simulations being run. 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:56.800 We haven't rolled out enough of them to really test 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.640 it out yet. Sure, well, well on a on a 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.800 small level and kind of anecdot totally. You can see 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.800 this if you use Apple Maps or Google Maps or 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:05.640 something like that to tell you how to get to 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.640 a place, it will automatically reroot you around bad traffic 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.040 areas these days. So technology. Yeah, and they also in 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.520 addition to all of this theoretical knowledge, they have a 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.440 practical proven record so far. They are doing very well 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.000 in the field. Yeah. The only accidents that the Google 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.200 cars have been in so far the last time that 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.560 we checked at any rate, Yeah, and I want to 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.400 say they were it was up to seven or eleven total, 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.080 But at any rate, none of them were caused by 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.200 the the autonomous by the computer. They were caused by 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.160 humans around the computer, you know. In fact, there was 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.560 an instance I can't remember exactly what it was. It 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.800 was like a month ago or so where the media 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:48.320 got all excited because there was a report that supposedly 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.240 some autonomous cars had almost gotten into a wreck with 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.440 each other. It was the biggest non story I know. 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.800 I ended up reading into that and saying, there's nothing 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.960 here that like, nobody got hurt, there was not a collision. Yeah, 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.080 the person from Google actually said. The person from Google said, 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.320 the headline here is autonomous cars do exactly what they 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.760 were supposed to do, because that's how it read the way. 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:12.720 The way it was being reported, at least in some 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.080 media outlets. Some of them were really good about it. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.000 Some of them were very responsible, but a few of 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.480 them said, you know, near miss with autonomous cars. And 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.720 the story almost came across as a Google car had 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.600 um had cut off a Delphi car and that no, 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.720 it was it, Yeah, it was Delph. I think. Um, 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.040 so a Google car had cut off a Delphi car 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.600 and the Delphi car was able to react to prevent 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.640 an accident from happening. And then the person at Delphi 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:42.280 I said, that's not what I said at all. What 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.360 I said was our autonomous car had made a plan 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.320 to do a lane change, but then the Google car 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.640 did a lane change first, which meant that the space 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.920 the Delphi car was supposed to go into was currently occupied. 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.640 So the Delphi car switched its strategy, which is exactly 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.840 what he when drivers do all the time, and we 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.760 don't often fail to do and then hit each other 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.280 where you're like, no, I want that lane and it 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.120 is mine, whether your car isn't it or not. But 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.120 that's the that was the deal was that it was 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:15.719 not a car cutting off another one. It was a 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.520 car making a lane change in another car changing at 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.040 the last section second it's mind to change lanes. Yeah. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.080 So I don't want to sound like a you know, 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.600 schill for the autonomous car vendors out there, but it 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.320 seems to me their track record is pretty good. The 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.480 human driving track record is not good at all. Right, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.079 It's it's demonstrably worse, right, I mean, we have plenty 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:43.000 of of records on that. The one big drawback to 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.559 autonomous cars is that they're going to be really really 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.000 expensive when they come out, assuming that you know, at 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.160 least at first at least at first, and and probably 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.800 significantly expensive for quite some time afterward, because while manufacturing 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.680 can really help bring down costs, like as you improve 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.680 those processes, the amount of technology being packed into these 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.400 cars is such that even with improvements to those manufacturing processes, 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.800 you're never going to get uh an autonomous car down 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.160 to the price of like a mid priced car. It's 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.240 always going to be on the high end, um possibly 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.400 on the very high end, at least for the foreseeable future. 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.760 But that's not necessarily a deal breaker as far as 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.920 autonomous cars helping us out. No, Because I want to 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.800 form a little analogy here. I remember people saying this. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.440 In fact, they're still saying it today, but they used 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.880 to say it like in the nineties, was, Uh, we'll 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.760 never have electric vehicles because they just cost too much 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:45.800 and they will never cost less. We will surely never 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.200 improve upon this technology. Right. And it's true that there 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.320 haven't been a whole lot of personal electric vehicles rolled out, 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:55.680 But one thing that I think we did get fairly 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.280 early on was certain areas, like some college campuses or 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.840 some downtown areas adopting electric buses and other forms of 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.560 electric public transportation. Right. And that's exactly why we want 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.560 to kind of segue into this discussion about the possibility 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:16.880 of using electric autonomous vehicles as a taxi fleet. In 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.880 other words, not looking at autonomous cars as something that you, 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.800 as a person go out and go to a car 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.240 dealership and purchase. And this is the vehicle you're going 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.880 to be using. But rather, what about a an environment 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.040 where there's a fleet of these autonomous cars and you 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.079 can hail one of these cars like a cab whenever 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:38.960 you need to get from point A to point B. 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:41.800 And so it's a it's a very different use case. 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.880 And when it comes to that use case, the story 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.520 is incredibly different. It is much different than from the 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.160 the huge barrier of entry of the cost for an 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.200 individual person, right, right, So so let's talk about some 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.120 solid numbers. Let's talk about New York City, which has 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.360 really had a lot of taxi cabs um and is 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.080 also where Frank is from. Yes, so New York City 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.720 is great example for multiple reasons. One the enormous fleet 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.040 of cabs that are there too, it's a very dense 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.320 urban environment, it's got a large population we mentioned in 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:20.040 our Mega Cities episode there there. It's a great candidate 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.120 to use as an example. So the data that I'm 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.320 going to be spouting off is from lots of different 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:30.360 sources over several different years. So keep in mind that 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.000 the numbers aren't all uh they don't all come from 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.520 one source, right, So, uh so there's gonna be some 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.920 your mileage may vary in this case. According to the 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:47.000 twenty ten census, uh less than half of the three 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.040 million households in New York City own a car. So 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.600 a fewer than half of the popular of the households, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:55.840 not population, but the households in New York City own 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.480 a car. Um that's one point four million households on 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.920 a car coin to the twenty census. And the lowest 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:07.240 ownership rate is in Manhattan, where it's around twenty three 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.080 of households owning a car. But doesn't every household have 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.319 their own subway station. Yes, that's how New York works. 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.040 Uh well, no, I mean the point I'm making is 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.640 that you can definitely chalk that up to them having 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.640 very good public transit. Yeah, that's definitely. Well, that's part 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.360 of it. But the taxi cabs are also the yellow cabs. 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:31.000 They are they are almost almost exclusively concentrated in Lower Manhattan. 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.360 Uh so the other ones. Brooklyn is at forty percent ownership, 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.600 Bronx is at Queens is in Staten Island is at 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.200 Now if you want to compare that to the national average, 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.960 the average across the entire United States. In the US 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.640 of households own at least one car, so in New 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.640 York City it is much lower than average. Um. New 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.960 York City is therefore this great example of how are 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.200 people getting around if they're not? If not everyone owns 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:07.600 a vehicle. Uh. And so besides the buses and subways, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.920 cabs and livery cars and other vehicles that are driver 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:16.320 for higher services, that's the answer. Besides walking, that's also 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.200 a big one. But how many taxis are they running 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.960 around in New York? So the most recent number I've 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.760 seen is thirty seven. However, the most recent site I 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.520 could find was from an actual from an actual source 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:33.760 from within New York City was the two thousand fourteen 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:39.400 Taxi Cab fact Book, a jolly good read, uh, published 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.600 by New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission. And at that 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:46.760 time when they published the fact book, it was thot seven. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.360 So somewhere in the thirteen thousand, five hundred range is 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.880 what we're talking about. And it's such an exact number 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.400 because New York and New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.400 specifically dispensed these uh, these medallions which are kind of 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.320 like a license to be a cabby or our license 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.600 for your car to be used as a cab. Right, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.840 you're authorized to act as a cab driver within the 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.960 New York City area. And a medallion is a small 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.760 metal plate that actually attaches to the hood of a taxi. 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:22.000 That's what designates that car as being authorized and is 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.680 it is legally allowed to act as a cab. Because 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.080 we also have probably all have heard the stories of 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.200 people landing in New York and some yahoo with a 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.480 car just happens to be yellow driving on up and yeah, yeah, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.040 they're they're they're what make sure you don't get kidnapped 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.880 by crazy person, right or or just fleeced like it 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:44.480 may be that you know, you get picked up by 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.280 somebody who's charging you ridiculous rates that I have nothing 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:52.160 to do with the um the actual authorized rates. Yeah, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.040 because I thought you meant the Central Park in New Hampshire. 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:58.960 What I thought you wanted the scenic route. We're gonna 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:03.280 visit all the borough until we get to Manhattan. Uh. Yeah. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.600 So the medallions are these plates that are on the cars. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.280 That's how you recognize that it's a cab technically, that 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.760 you've got the yellow cabs in Lower Manhattan that's mainly 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:14.600 where you're going to find them. Um, there are actually 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.280 two different types of medallions. There's independent medallions and many 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.320 fleet medallions. But both of those mean that the driver 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.040 of that car is authorized to operate a cab. So 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.240 here's an interesting number. Yellow taxis provide an average of 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:35.040 four eight five thousand trips per day collectively, not per taxi. No, yeah, 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.360 it's all of them together, hundred seventy five million a year. 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.760 By the way, that's a lot of trips. Now, they're 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.480 also borrowed taxis, and I apologize if you guys in 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.200 New York pronounce it totally different. But it's b O 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.200 r O and it's a it's for the Burrows. I 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.680 would imagine brow you would think so, But it's b 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.720 O r oh, and I'm calling it borrow. It's borrow taxis. 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.080 You do what you want, Jonathan. At least twelve thousand 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:09.080 of their abbreviated boraxes, So if you get on a borax, uh, slippery. No, 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.239 the boro taxis there at least twelve thousand of them 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.000 as and they are green in color, they're not yellow. 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.000 They serve areas of New York not commonly covered by 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.720 yellow taxi service or really anything out of Lower Manhattan 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.480 UH and total, we're looking at around twenty five thousand 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.320 taxis of some sort, yellow or greens serving the streets 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.280 in New York City. Then you've got another twenty five 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:34.159 thousand falling under the category of liveries UH and you 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.919 cannot street hail one of those, So you can't be 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.679 on the corner and see a livery car and flag 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.320 it down. They're not allowed to stop. You can. You 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:44.960 must prearrange your trips with these services, so are a 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.720 little different from the taxis. Also, until recently, there was 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.040 no way to get a yellow cab without just flagging 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.639 it down. You couldn't pre arrange them. You had to 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.640 flag it down, and you flag it down these days 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.720 either the old fashioned way where you're waving at a 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.600 cab driver, or they're also apps now where you can 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.840 use that to UH to flag a cab, but it's 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:12.040 essentially the same thing. Then you've got the black car Services, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.520 which has about another ten thousand vehicles, so you're looking 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.240 at what sixty thousand of these cars driving people around 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.919 New York City. Now, on top of that, those are 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:25.800 all the those are the ones that are overseen by 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.080 the Taxi and Limousine Commission, Yeah, what about Uber? So 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.280 Uber Uber and Lift and all those other similar digital 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:38.080 services we've popped up recently. Uber in particular has raised 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.760 some some some hell or in New York City, people 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.240 would say, because they've they come in and the Taxi 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:50.359 and Limousine Commission not really super happy about this other 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.800 group coming in that has nothing like they don't answer 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.240 to the commission at all. They set their own rates. 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.280 They you know, it's it's very different approach. And the 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.800 perception is that Uber is taking a lot of business 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.239 away from the registered drivers who also have to go 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.000 through like the a lot more regulation than Uber does. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.159 So there there's some real concerns saying, hey, it's not 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.360 really fair. This other business is coming in and they're 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.760 not subject to the same restrictions that we are, So 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.560 why are we Why are we allowing them to steal business? 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.960 That's kind of the narrative. However, there's some things you 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.200 gotta keep in mind. First of all, there are more 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.200 Uber cars in the streets of New York City, then 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.719 there are yellow taxi cabs. Well, there are more Uber drivers. 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.200 That's really well, that's the fair thing to say. How 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:43.160 many are in operation at any given time. Isilar lower? Yeah? Yeah, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.520 So Uber drivers number around nineteen thousand in New York 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:52.760 City across seven bases. Uh. Depending upon where you read this, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.400 this the statistic, because I've also seen it as low 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.600 as around fourteen thousand, four hundred and as high as 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.680 nineteen thousand. But that means that there are more Uber 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.719 drivers either way. Even on the low number, there are 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.080 more Uber drivers than there are yellow taxi medallions in 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.280 New York City. However, that does not mean that Uber 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.679 has taken out a huge chunk of that taxi business. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.560 So remember I said four eight thousand trips per day 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.720 for the taxi cabs. For Uber, it's closer to thirty 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.160 four thousand, thirty four thousand, two hundred seventy one trips 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.479 per day. So a fraction, oh yeah, tiny tiny amount 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.000 compared that was That number comes from a report in 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.880 September two fourteen. We should really do a whole episode 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.000 on these these types of services, because the legal tangles 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:41.040 in the surrounding, like socio technological issues are are really 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.600 interesting um and the numbers are more serious than other cities. 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:47.520 Portland is in the middle of a four month taxi 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:52.600 deregulation experiment and according to their intern report, Uber and 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.719 Lift and and et cetera have handled forty three per 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:00.560 cent of taxi calls in May. Yeah, so very different 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.520 story depending upon where you are. Sure well, and that's 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.440 also partially I'm sure due to the de regulation that's 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.159 going on in that area right now. But you know what, 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.240 we'll see what happens at the end of that experiment 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.200 period and do lots more research and come back to 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.080 guys with another episode if if it warrant that. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.119 because it's it's definitely, I mean, the story of of 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.400 Uber in general is pretty amazing. This was an idea 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:34.040 that uh ended up being a multibillion dollar idea. It's phenomenal. Yeah. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.520 So at any rate, we've got what's this like, seventy 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:44.119 to nine thousand cars cars that are in services in 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.320 New York City, not necessarily all at the same time, 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.760 but yes, yeah, ninety thousand cars in New York City 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.080 providing services for people to get from point A to 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:57.359 point b. Uh. So what if we did something really 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.159 crazy and we ended up take all of those cars 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.520 off the streets, fired all the drivers, and replace them 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:10.480 all with robo taxis Well, that is certainly not great 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.960 if you are a taxi or uber driver. Nope, but 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.840 it's it's also something that you absolutely should plan for 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.840 if you happen to be a taxi or uber driver, because, uh, 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.480 sooner or later this will happen. Whether whether it will happen, 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.680 you know, within the next five to ten years, largely 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.160 depends not so much on the technology as it does 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.960 on the legislation. That's really where it's going to to 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.919 be the battle ground, I think, But it will happen. Uh, 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.800 and don't just believe us. There was a study that 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:44.720 recently came out that says pretty much the same thing. Yeah. 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:48.800