GPS Tracking Devices Show Taxi Drivers Rip Customers Off
Anyone who has ever visited Chicago or New York understands the importance of taxi cabs serving a major metropolitan city. Finding a parking place in the city is nearly impossible unless you want to pay $25 for 2 hours of parking and put your vehicle in a parking structure. Thankfully, taxi cabs provide a cost-effective solution to moving around the city quickly and effectively without having to stress out about parking, parallel parking, and expensive parking structures. Unfortunately, a recent review by the Taxi and Limousine Commission discovered that taxi cab drivers were doing more than simply driving passengers from point A to point B, but were pulling off a million-dollar heist on unsuspecting customers. In fact, the commission revealed in a report that taxi cab drivers in New York overcharged customers approximately $8.5 million dollars on roughly 2 million dollar trips! One of the most disturbing finds in the report published by the commission stated that over 75% of the nearly 45,000 taxi cabs working inside New York City ripped off at least one customer!
How the commission came across the scandal through the use of GPS tracking technology. Often used for various fleet management applications, GPS car tracking systems can accurately determine a wide variety of location-based data. The data from the GPS trackers were used by the commission to calculate whether or not the cab drivers were fairly charging customers.
GPS Tracker For Taxi Cabs
Any person who has ever walked in the crowded streets of a bustling metropolis such as New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles understands the importance that taxi cabs provide to the transportation system. Taxis are an essential part of mobility in most cities, and with approximately 10,000 cabs operating daily in the New York City area alone, it is clear that their services will only be increasing with time. With so many taxi cabs operating in such a dense area fleet management could be a nightmare, but with many taxi cab companies adopting GPS tracking programs aimed at equipping every taxi cab in the field with a vehicle tracking system fleet management has never been easier.
Controlling and staying connected with mobile resources via GPS tracker technology helps modernize fleet management operations, reduce operating costs and increase profit margin.
“We have seen a lot of cab companies turn to real time GPS to help them better manage vehicle fleets, and thus far the experience has beneficial to the business and customer”, explained a security expert at Tracking System Direct.
GPS Tracking Benefits For Taxis
Taxi cabs are the mobile fabric of any major city as people depend on their services to arrive or depart from school, work, a restaurant, or a friend’s house. With so many people relying on the transportation services of taxis, fleet management efficiency is a top priority for every reputable taxi cab company. GPS vehicle tracking programs help with that efficiency and cab companies are seeing the advantages.
Advantages of vehicle tracking technology include:
- Theft Recovery: If a taxi cab driver is ever held at gunpoint or has his cab stolen the data from the tracking system will quickly lead law enforcement to the location of the stolen cab. Recovering the stolen cab and catching the criminal(s) is much easier when a vehicle is equipped with a GPS tracking device.
- Traffic Jam Avoidance: When a vehicle is installed with a GPS tracking system people monitoring the GPS tracker from a control room can alert cab drivers if they are about to enter an area clogged with traffic. The GPS tracking device allows the operator to easily re-route the cab driver, which saves you money!
- Historical Data: GPS tracking devices have the technological ability to store information for extended periods of time, therefore, if a cab company ever wanted to audit a driver’s routes driven for the week they could easily do so by reviewing the historical records of travels by accessing the recorded GPS tracking data.
GPS tracking technology and vehicle tracking devices used for fleet management are nothing new among businesses with large numbers of mobile resources.
It is only a matter of time before every city and business vehicle is equipped with a GPS tracking device.
Cab Driver Experiences Making People Turn To Uber
Although cab drivers and taxis serve a purpose in city-life society, the event of riding in a cab is often a less than pleasurable experience. First of all, it seems like every cab smells of moldy cheese, and the driver’s scent is even worse. However, as passengers, we deal with these little dirty inconveniences because we need transportation because heaven forbid we might have to walk two city blocks. Now passengers can add getting ripped off to the growing list of reasons not to ride in the cab.
Have you ever driven in a cab and had an interesting experience? Did you not pay the cab driver, run out of the cab, and watch as the overweight driver scrambled in a clumsy fashion to chase you, quickly giving up due to shortness of breath after 8 steps? Have you ever had sex in a cab? Apparently, a lot of people do…think about that next you are sitting in the backseat of your taxi!