8 ms·

The Knowledge of London for cab drivers

31 points by smusamashah 6y ago

LatteLazy 6y ago
It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfriars" is a bridge and a station and a road all in slightly different places. There are at least 4 Green Lanes...
- commonturtle 6y ago
  It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues. There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    I 100% agree. Its been that way for at least a decade (garmin GPS before Google maps). It's a weird sort of self sustaining monopoly/club/political-group now.
  - raspyberr 6y ago
    You're right about that SatNavs are very effective but what are you actually comparing? London Cabs aren't the only taxi service in London. You can choose to drive in London. You can take the tube. What's the issue?
  - danpalmer 6y ago
    Please don't take this as a personal attack, but I see this sort of attitude as the crux of the tech "disruption fetish". I'm guilty of the same thing often, but I have to push myself to see past the tech solution and to the human expertise it is replacing. Also this isn't so much a defence of cabbies, I don't use them and think them expensive an antiquated. It's a defence of the process being a better one than the relatively basic tech solution we have so far. Google Maps just isn't that smart yet. Yes, you can absolutely drive a car through London on a route yourself and it'll work fine, for some definition of "fine". On the other hand a taxi driver is supposed to be able to perform to a far better definition of fine[1]. Google Maps accounts for traffic when it's bad. Does it account for traffic patterns before it gets bad? Maybe, badly. Does it account for bad traffic that it knows is going to happen because it chatted about an event in a certain place with another cabbie over tea earlier, or because it knows that there's a road closure for a race this afternoon? No. Google Maps is so far from taking into account things like this, but they are natural for a human, particularly one with expertise. Google Maps will take you to a place, but what if the place you need is more nuanced than that? The stations in London often have multiple entrances, and walking from the wrong entrance to your platform could be 5 minutes and you'll miss your train because of it. Cabbies can take you to the correct entrance because they know this. Does Google Maps account for this? Maybe, badly. What if you need to get to the stage door of a theatre? This could be a few minutes away from the public entrance, but cabbies are supposed to know these sorts of landmarks. Does Google Maps account for this? No. What if you want to go to The Dorchester, let's hope you get directions to the hotel and not the town. It's easy to excuse getting the wrong entrance to a location, or being off by 15 minutes on a journey, when it's just you driving yourself through London, but this doesn't work at the scale of public transport, and doesn't work if you are buying a service from a provider who is supposed to have intimate knowledge of the city. Tech can probably manage these things at some point, but like with so much "disruption", we've solved a basic version of the problem and declared it better and stopped listening to people who have collectively been doing it for a century. [1]: Some taxi drivers in London are crap because they can't be bothered. I'm talking about the hypothetical good, qualified, cabbie.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Someone must have done a cabbie vs. satnav challenge surely? Does Google definitely not account for future events? If I plan a journey for London Marathon day, say, does it not even warn me of delays? Does it take in warnings of engineering works (eg for rail travel)?
      - raspyberr 6y ago
        They have. Just search on YouTube. The ones I could quickly find were about 10 years old unfortunately and not exactly extensive experiments.
      - danpalmer 6y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised if Google accounts for the London Marathon. Does it account for the opening night of a new show in the West End? I highly doubt it. I don't think Google maintain their own data for rail travel, and the data sources aren't that good, so I doubt they'll be accounting for engineering works unless either they are scheduled far in advance or they've been happening for a while. In my experience it takes time equivalent to a bunch of people having a crap journey and Google collecting that data for Google's instructions to change, they're not pre-emptive based on expert knowledge, they're reactive based on collected data.
      - notatoad 6y ago
        >someone must have done a cabbie vs satnav challenge I'd argue it's been happening on a fairly large scale for the last few years. That Uber is competitive is a good sign that the Knowledge isn't nearly as much of an advantage as the cabbies would have you believe, but nor has it been completely eclipsed by tech
    - xadhominemx 6y ago
      Waze does a much better job of accounting for traffic than cabbies. It's true that sometimes cabbies will drop you off at a better door - is that worth 30 pounds?
      - 6y ago
  - easytiger 6y ago
    It doesn't, especially recently with lots of road closures and such. One journey I know and have had to do regularly to look after a relative since lockdown, Google maps takes a significant journey of around 30 minutes when I or a cab driver can do it in less than 15. One wrong turn and a lack of initiative from a driver can lead you to a very long journey given the destruction of the central London road system
- swedishturnip 6y ago
  FYI 'One Poultry' is indeed an address to a building, 'Poultry' is the road. And it's 'Blackfriars (Railway) Bridge', 'Blackfriars Road' & 'Blackfriars Station'.
- woleium 6y ago
  We nearly got a grid after the great fire in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren had a plan[1]. In any case, the fire caused a major redesign, so not quite medieval, but not far off. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-35418272 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-3...
  - edoceo 6y ago
    No AMP!! https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35418272 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35418272
    - woleium 6y ago
      oops! shakes fist at Google
- OJFord 6y ago
  What you call not 'a huge mess' (NYC say) I call soulless modernity. It's not like it even has the advantage of relentless practicality, see Times Sq for example.
- sheepdestroyer 6y ago
  The proper locution is "it's worth noting".
hprotagonist 6y ago
Famously, cramming The Knowledge into your head induces plastic changes to your hippocampus: https://www.nature.com/news/the-knowledge-enlarges-your-brain-1.9602 https://www.nature.com/news/the-knowledge-enlarges-your-brai...
- jonnydubowsky 6y ago
  So cool!
- dehrmann 6y ago
  I wonder if any of the GTA games are large enough to do the same.
  - hprotagonist 6y ago
    trivially almost anything you do introduces changes in the brain; it’s just a question of how robust those changes are and how long they stick around.
topicseed 6y ago
What is amazing with black cabs in London is their ability to find ways other than the normal one to get you where you need to be. This comes with experience from times where Google Maps wasn't so ubiquitous, and that insane Knowledge test. However, everything else I dislike with black cabs. I mostly use Uber and when the main route is problematic, the driver focuses on his phone more than on the road, and that's alright. At least they are polite and don't try to rip me off like too many black cabs tried to.
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  Uber Lux drivers tend to be professional drivers working for luxury chauffeur companies and as such are vastly better than the regular Uber drivers, the prices are still competitive with black cabs (for up to 3 pax)
  - topicseed 6y ago
    Can I play my music/radio via Bluetooth?
    - FDSGSG 6y ago
      Of course you can.
- szundi 6y ago
  I was there only one. I called an Uber. The guy went all directions, after like 15 minutes he pressed cancel. Cool, called an other one. It just went into the complete opposite direction, after 5 mins / 1-2 kms watching this I pressed cancel. Called a black cab, guy picks me up alright, then just joined some heavy traffic. I used Waze (that he never ever heard about) and told him which routes to take and did not miss my train to the airport by like 2 minutes. I am pretty sure every other Uber and black cab driver is much more experienced.
- tweetle_beetle 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, how have black cab drivers tried to rip you off? There's no room for maneuver in the fixed fare structure [1], which is designed to incentivise taking more low distance fares. If anything, the traditional trope was that they were "generous" - if you asked for a receipt, they would give you a wedge of empty receipts for you to fill in yourself for tax claims. [1] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares?intcmp=4223 https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares?intcm...
kepler1 6y ago
I'm sure a regulatory body run by its members can find all sorts of reasons to justify its existence so that competition can be kept at bay and high wages maintained.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
alphagrep12345 6y ago
Why would someone go through this prep for 4 years when they can just register through uber and start driving?
- csb6 6y ago
  Job security, better pay.
jennyyang 6y ago
All this is is an artificial moat to give the taxis a monopoly. I used Uber when I was in London last year, and it was superb.

31 points by smusamashah 6y ago

It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfriars" is a bridge and a station and a road all in slightly different places. There are at least 4 Green Lanes...

commonturtle 6y ago
It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues. There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I 100% agree. Its been that way for at least a decade (garmin GPS before Google maps). It's a weird sort of self sustaining monopoly/club/political-group now.
- raspyberr 6y ago
  You're right about that SatNavs are very effective but what are you actually comparing? London Cabs aren't the only taxi service in London. You can choose to drive in London. You can take the tube. What's the issue?
- danpalmer 6y ago
  Please don't take this as a personal attack, but I see this sort of attitude as the crux of the tech "disruption fetish". I'm guilty of the same thing often, but I have to push myself to see past the tech solution and to the human expertise it is replacing. Also this isn't so much a defence of cabbies, I don't use them and think them expensive an antiquated. It's a defence of the process being a better one than the relatively basic tech solution we have so far. Google Maps just isn't that smart yet. Yes, you can absolutely drive a car through London on a route yourself and it'll work fine, for some definition of "fine". On the other hand a taxi driver is supposed to be able to perform to a far better definition of fine[1]. Google Maps accounts for traffic when it's bad. Does it account for traffic patterns before it gets bad? Maybe, badly. Does it account for bad traffic that it knows is going to happen because it chatted about an event in a certain place with another cabbie over tea earlier, or because it knows that there's a road closure for a race this afternoon? No. Google Maps is so far from taking into account things like this, but they are natural for a human, particularly one with expertise. Google Maps will take you to a place, but what if the place you need is more nuanced than that? The stations in London often have multiple entrances, and walking from the wrong entrance to your platform could be 5 minutes and you'll miss your train because of it. Cabbies can take you to the correct entrance because they know this. Does Google Maps account for this? Maybe, badly. What if you need to get to the stage door of a theatre? This could be a few minutes away from the public entrance, but cabbies are supposed to know these sorts of landmarks. Does Google Maps account for this? No. What if you want to go to The Dorchester, let's hope you get directions to the hotel and not the town. It's easy to excuse getting the wrong entrance to a location, or being off by 15 minutes on a journey, when it's just you driving yourself through London, but this doesn't work at the scale of public transport, and doesn't work if you are buying a service from a provider who is supposed to have intimate knowledge of the city. Tech can probably manage these things at some point, but like with so much "disruption", we've solved a basic version of the problem and declared it better and stopped listening to people who have collectively been doing it for a century. [1]: Some taxi drivers in London are crap because they can't be bothered. I'm talking about the hypothetical good, qualified, cabbie.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Someone must have done a cabbie vs. satnav challenge surely? Does Google definitely not account for future events? If I plan a journey for London Marathon day, say, does it not even warn me of delays? Does it take in warnings of engineering works (eg for rail travel)?
    - raspyberr 6y ago
      They have. Just search on YouTube. The ones I could quickly find were about 10 years old unfortunately and not exactly extensive experiments.
    - danpalmer 6y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if Google accounts for the London Marathon. Does it account for the opening night of a new show in the West End? I highly doubt it. I don't think Google maintain their own data for rail travel, and the data sources aren't that good, so I doubt they'll be accounting for engineering works unless either they are scheduled far in advance or they've been happening for a while. In my experience it takes time equivalent to a bunch of people having a crap journey and Google collecting that data for Google's instructions to change, they're not pre-emptive based on expert knowledge, they're reactive based on collected data.
    - notatoad 6y ago
      >someone must have done a cabbie vs satnav challenge I'd argue it's been happening on a fairly large scale for the last few years. That Uber is competitive is a good sign that the Knowledge isn't nearly as much of an advantage as the cabbies would have you believe, but nor has it been completely eclipsed by tech
  - xadhominemx 6y ago
    Waze does a much better job of accounting for traffic than cabbies. It's true that sometimes cabbies will drop you off at a better door - is that worth 30 pounds?
    - 6y ago
- easytiger 6y ago
  It doesn't, especially recently with lots of road closures and such. One journey I know and have had to do regularly to look after a relative since lockdown, Google maps takes a significant journey of around 30 minutes when I or a cab driver can do it in less than 15. One wrong turn and a lack of initiative from a driver can lead you to a very long journey given the destruction of the central London road system
swedishturnip 6y ago
FYI 'One Poultry' is indeed an address to a building, 'Poultry' is the road. And it's 'Blackfriars (Railway) Bridge', 'Blackfriars Road' & 'Blackfriars Station'.
woleium 6y ago
We nearly got a grid after the great fire in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren had a plan[1]. In any case, the fire caused a major redesign, so not quite medieval, but not far off. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-35418272 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-3...
- edoceo 6y ago
  No AMP!! https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35418272 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35418272
  - woleium 6y ago
    oops! shakes fist at Google
OJFord 6y ago
What you call not 'a huge mess' (NYC say) I call soulless modernity. It's not like it even has the advantage of relentless practicality, see Times Sq for example.
sheepdestroyer 6y ago
The proper locution is "it's worth noting".

hprotagonist 6y ago

Famously, cramming The Knowledge into your head induces plastic changes to your hippocampus: https://www.nature.com/news/the-knowledge-enlarges-your-brain-1.9602 https://www.nature.com/news/the-knowledge-enlarges-your-brai...

jonnydubowsky 6y ago
So cool!
dehrmann 6y ago
I wonder if any of the GTA games are large enough to do the same.
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  trivially almost anything you do introduces changes in the brain; it’s just a question of how robust those changes are and how long they stick around.

topicseed 6y ago

What is amazing with black cabs in London is their ability to find ways other than the normal one to get you where you need to be. This comes with experience from times where Google Maps wasn't so ubiquitous, and that insane Knowledge test. However, everything else I dislike with black cabs. I mostly use Uber and when the main route is problematic, the driver focuses on his phone more than on the road, and that's alright. At least they are polite and don't try to rip me off like too many black cabs tried to.

FDSGSG 6y ago
Uber Lux drivers tend to be professional drivers working for luxury chauffeur companies and as such are vastly better than the regular Uber drivers, the prices are still competitive with black cabs (for up to 3 pax)
- topicseed 6y ago
  Can I play my music/radio via Bluetooth?
  - FDSGSG 6y ago
    Of course you can.
szundi 6y ago
I was there only one. I called an Uber. The guy went all directions, after like 15 minutes he pressed cancel. Cool, called an other one. It just went into the complete opposite direction, after 5 mins / 1-2 kms watching this I pressed cancel. Called a black cab, guy picks me up alright, then just joined some heavy traffic. I used Waze (that he never ever heard about) and told him which routes to take and did not miss my train to the airport by like 2 minutes. I am pretty sure every other Uber and black cab driver is much more experienced.
tweetle_beetle 6y ago
Out of curiosity, how have black cab drivers tried to rip you off? There's no room for maneuver in the fixed fare structure [1], which is designed to incentivise taking more low distance fares. If anything, the traditional trope was that they were "generous" - if you asked for a receipt, they would give you a wedge of empty receipts for you to fill in yourself for tax claims. [1] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares?intcmp=4223 https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares?intcm...

kepler1 6y ago

I'm sure a regulatory body run by its members can find all sorts of reasons to justify its existence so that competition can be kept at bay and high wages maintained.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

alphagrep12345 6y ago

Why would someone go through this prep for 4 years when they can just register through uber and start driving?

csb6 6y ago
Job security, better pay.

jennyyang 6y ago

All this is is an artificial moat to give the taxis a monopoly. I used Uber when I was in London last year, and it was superb.