There are few images as enduring and recognizable as that of a New York Yellow Cab. From a very young age, people from all around the world have that image deeply entrenched into their consciousness, as a result of the many pieces of New York-based media they had consumed.

A blog about taxis cannot pertain to be one without a mention of the New York Yellow Cab. This is why today we will tell you about the history of the inarguably most famous taxi in the world.

The Creation of the Yellow Cab

The history of the New York cab predates the existence of modern cars.

The first private taxi company to spring up in the Big Apple started operations in 1897. The Electric Carriage and Wagon Company had 12 electric hansom cabs that took passengers across the five boroughs. Only a few years later, the fleet numbered 1,000 cabs, though sadly, many of them were destroyed in a fire; that event, coupled with the financial crisis of 1907, bankrupted the company.

With the dissolution of the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company, New Yorkers were forced to go back to horse-drawn carriages. That was until businessman Harry N. Allen decided to start his own taxi company, named the New York Taxi Cab Company, after being charged an exorbitant price for a carriage ride.

In 1907, Allen imported 65 cars with gasoline engines from France which, importantly, had taximeters (that’s where the word taxi comes from) that track the mileage, so riders could not be tricked by advantageous drivers. Allen is an example of a disgruntled client who took matters into his own hands and accidentally created the modern taxi.

The French cars were originally red and green, but Allen repainted them all yellow, so they could be noticeable from greater distance (he must have known a thing or two about color theory). Similar businesses emerged in other American cities, most notably Chicago, which soon got its own fleet of recognizable yellow cabs.

Allen’s business became an overnight success and New Yorkers soon bid farewell to the horse-drawn carriage. Within a year, his 65 cars turned to a fleet of 700, and clients were happy about the service and the pricing.

In 1908, a notable competitor came on the scene when Albert Rockwell founded his own taxi company in Connecticut (though the cabs operated in New York). Rockwell argued that his taxis were the first NYC yellow cabs after his wife allegedly suggested painting the cars yellow for her favorite color. In 1912, Rockwell even changed the company’s name to the Yellow Taxicab Company.

The businessman was apparently so adamant about the fact that he was the one who invented the yellow taxi that he started long legal processes against multiple taxi operators, with one case even reaching the New York Supreme Court. The justices didn’t ban other operators from painting their cars yellow, though they conceded that Rockwell could stop them from associating with his brand.

Some believe Allen to be the creator of the New York City Yellow Cab, and others point to Rockwell, but whatever the truth is, the important thing to understand is that it led to a taxi revolution that captured not only the American imagination, but that of the whole world.

In the first few decades of gasoline-powered taxis in New York, each company had a car fleet in a distinctive which helped clients remember their brand.

There were red, green, and even purple cars (the latter famously making an appearance in the classic The Great Gatsby), which allowed riders to easily pick out their preferred operator. Still, it was yellow that came out victorious in the end.

The same was true for the car brand. Many companies, including Ford and General Motors, tried to make their mark and monopolize the taxi field, but it would be the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company, featuring the iconic checkered line, that became the most popular.

Later History of the Yellow Cab

Cabs were an instant success in New York which makes sense because nobody wants to drive in that traffic.

However, at some point, there were so many cars and drivers that they exceeded the market’s needs. In order to remedy that, New York mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia (yes, the guy who has an airport named after him) created the medallion system of licensing in 1936 (which still exists today) and limited the number of licenses.

Still, some companies tried to evade the law and offer rides in unlicensed cars. This is why in 1967, a new law was passed that mandated all medallion taxis to be painted yellow to stop the confusion and to curb illegal taxi companies.

A few years later, in 1971, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) was founded as a subsidiary of the New York City government. TLC was given an exclusive right to license and regulate medallion taxis, a responsibility it holds today.

Conclusion

This is the brief history of the most famous taxi in the world – the New York Yellow Cab. There have been many more interesting stories associated with the brand over the years, but we’d need months to retell them.

If you want to learn more about the NYC Yellow Cab, we recommend the books The Taxicab: An Urban Transportation Survivor by Robert E. Samuels and Taxi!: A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver by Graham Russell Gao Hodges.

We wanted to change things up a little bit with this article, so we will show you one unusual type of taxis – water taxis. Seattle, Washington is particularly known for its water taxis which is why we will discuss them in more detail today.

Find out how they work, how often people use them, and how to “hail” one next time you’re in the Emerald City.

What are Water Taxis

Naturally, the Seattle water taxis are not cars (though one company developed amphibious taxis that can travel on land and water). In Seattle’s case, the water taxis are ferries, but water taxis can also be other types of boats; in Venice, for example, they are gondolas. Ferries, however, provide more space for passengers, and Seattle water taxis are known to be fast.

What’s more, many water taxi companies in Seattle let you travel with your four-legged friend, provided that the animal is well-behaved and leashed or in a travelling bag/container.

History of Seattle Water Taxis

Seattle is a city surrounded by water which explains why many choose water transport to get around. Native Americans living in the area have travelled on canoes for centuries, and so did the first European settlers during the expansion to the west. Soon after, in the 1830’s, the first steamboat called Beaver started operating in the area.

Later on, in 1846, the first American town in the region, Olympia, was founded. This was followed by the founding of Seattle in 1851. Perhaps inspired by the Gold Rush in California (1848-1855), more and more people migrated to Washington in the hopes of finding gold. Washington has some gold reserves, but they are nowhere near as many or as rich as those found in California, Nevada, and Alaska.

Still, many Americans soon started moving to Washington and Seattle began developing as a city. In 1852, the new settlers found out that shore around Elliot Bay had deep enough water to accommodate a port; Puget Sound already had welcomed steamboats by then.

Following these events, a few private companies spurned up in Seattle which offered rides on steamboats and sternwheelers. This new fleet was known as the Mosquito Fleet and it mainly travelled on the waters of Puget Sound, with stops on every waterfront dock.

The Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858, which started when gold was found in British Columbia, Canada, made these companies very profitable as migration to the region increased. Puget Sound became a shipping center for supplies and gold seekers to and from British Columbia.

Interestingly, the first licensed ferry to operate in Seattle, what we might refer to as the first water taxi in the city, was only launched on Christmas Eve in 1888. The ferry, called The City of Seattle, connected Seacrest Park in West Seattle (the oldest part of the city) to downtown Seattle, along with other places around the Puget Sound.

The City of Seattle made two trips every day, bringing people to work from one part of town to the other or holiday-makers to beaches along Puget Sound. Unfortunately, the service was discontinued after the building of the first South Park bridge over the Duwamish River in 1915.

Other ferry services, like those offered by the Mosquito Fleet, continued operating but the building of new bridges connecting West Seattle with Downtown Seattle, as well as the rising popularity of cars, made many of them obsolete. The Mosquito Fleet, in its original form, stopped operating in the 1930’s.

On the other hand, there were new auto-ferries that allowed passengers to bring their cars on board and those services were flourishing in mid-century Seattle.

The Return of Water Taxis

Although people could easily travel between West Seattle and Downtown Seattle with their cars, traffic was terrible and people wanted their water taxis back. As a result, the Elliot Bay Water Taxi began operations in 1997. Despite the relatively slow speed of the ferries, commuters preferred it over the congested car traffic. The only issue was that the service only operated between the months of April and October.

In 2007, a plan was announced to fund passenger-only ferries through property tax and a new district was formed, the King County Ferry District, to oversee and conduct operations. Later, in 2010, the services along the West Seattle route became year-round, proving commuters with reliable transport options. Additionally, travel time was significantly reduced by the introduction of catamarans.

Seattle Water Taxis Today

In this section, we will discuss the routes you can take with a Seattle water taxi and the schedule.

Routes

There are currently two water taxi routes in Seattle:

• West Seattle to Seattle – The water taxi docks at Seacrest Park in West Seattle (1660 Harbor Avenue SW, Seattle, WA 98126) and at the Downtown Seattle Terminal in Seattle, Pier 50 (801 Alaskan Way, Seattle, WA 98104).
• Vashon Island to Seattle – The water taxi docks at the Vashon Ferry Terminal (10800 North Vashon Highway, Vashon, WA 98070) and at the Downtown Seattle Terminal in Seattle, Pier 50 (801 Alaskan Way, Seattle, WA 98104).

Schedule

The West Seattle-Seattle route operates daily, with the exclusion of some holidays, while the Vashon Island-Seattle route operates only during weekdays. For the full schedule of Water Taxis in Seattle, please refer to the King County page.

San Francisco, California is one of the innovation centers of the world, so it came as no surprise that the city authorized self-driving taxis, or robotaxis, to operate on its streets in 2022. Now, two years later, robot taxis belonging to different companies can be seen everywhere in the city.

We were curious to find out more about them which is why we entered a long waitlist and we finally got to ride one. Read this article to find out more about self-driving taxis in San Francisco and learn whether they are worth the hype.

Technology

Everyone’s first question is probably about the technology of autonomous cats. There are five levels of driving automation, and while many think that the robotaxis they see in the Bay belong to the highest tier (level 5), they are all actually level 4.

Level 5 autonomous vehicles perform all driving tasks in all conditions with zero human interaction necessary. Level 4 autonomous vehicles, by contrast, can perform all driving tasks under certain circumstances, with geofencing necessary for operation, and driving actions can still be overridden by a human driver or a remote operator.

In the case of Waymo, for example, a human operator working remotely can stop the vehicle for any reason, and they do, mainly when passengers don’t put on their seatbelts or when there are more than the four people allowed inside the robotaxi.

Let’s return to the technology itself. Current robotaxis require geofencing, being level 4 autonomous vehicles, which uses GPS technology to create a virtual boundary that the built-in software uses to trigger a response when movement (vehicles and pedestrians) is detected.

Robotaxis are equipped with internal and external cameras, some being 360 degrees cameras, that allow them to safely operate on the road. The cars also have many sensors which allow them to detect movement even when said movement is considerably far from the vicinity of the car. Waymo cars, for instance, are said to see up to three football fields in any direction.

To summarise it, robotaxis rely on LiDAR (light detection and raging), cameras, and radars. The data accumulated through these sources is used to render the car’s surroundings with great fidelity and to also provide immediate solutions to present and future actions with the help of artificial intelligence.

Say, for example, that there is a cyclist on the road. The robotaxi will not only render the cyclist, but also take actions that avoid collision in both the present and future.

Here is a video produced by Waymo which shows how their cars operate:

Approved Self-Driving Taxi Companies in San Francisco

There are two companies which were approved by California legislators to operate their self-driving taxi services in San Francisco – Waymo, owned by Google, and Cruise, owned by General Motors.

Waymo and Cruise have spent billions of dollars developing their technology and they have been testing their new cars, first with drivers then without them, on the streets of San Francisco for years now.

In August 2023, the two companies were finally allowed to roll out their autonomous driving fleet to the public and to operate during all hours of the day.

Of course, this decision did not come without opposition. Some critics of the bill claimed that the technology was not tested enough, while others expressed overall dissatisfaction with tech companies using cities in the Bay as playgrounds for potentially hazardous products and services. Still, the bill passed and robotaxis by Waymo and Cruise began operating soon after.

Unfortunately, on October 2, 2023, there was an accident involving a Cruise car. A female pedestrian was hit by a car (not a self-driving one) with the collision throwing her at a Cruise car. The Cruise robotaxi initially stopped, detecting the pedestrian, but then tried to park itself which led to the woman being dragged for 20 feet, further injuring her. Luckily, the woman survived both collisions, but Cruise soon lost its license to operate in California.

General Motors argued that the pulling over maneuver, which injured the pedestrian, was required by state and federal law. This shows potential legislative errors which would hopefully be amended to eliminate the risk of possible collisions in the future.

Still, the company was not given back its license, and Cruise suspended operations nationwide. Recently, in February 2024, Cruise resumed testing its robotaxi fleet.

Our Experience with Robotaxis

Waymo announced that over 100,000 people were on its waitlist when the August 2023 was passed. We were on that waitlist, and many months after, in April 2024, we were finally allowed to try out Waymo.

The process of booking a Waymo car is similar to that of other car services. You have to open the Waymo app, enable your GPS service, pick a starting and end point, and wait. After about 10 minutes, a white Jaguar I-PACE came to pick us up. Rather than displaying a shiny “TAXI” sign on top, it displays the rider’s initials, so we were immediately enthralled.

Once inside, we had to buckle up and click the “Start Ride” button on the touchscreen located on the dashboard or the one located in the back. To say we were excited when the wheel started turning on its own is an understatement.

We saw that the Waymo car had a few set playlists for us to choose from, but we knew that you could also connect your phone to listen to your favorite songs, which is the first major advantage of robotaxis.

We were really impressed by the real-time map displayed on both screens which showed both cars and people around us, depicting every change of the environment with astonishing accuracy. For example, the car detected a pedestrian walking into a forest and it continued to do so long after we couldn’t see the person ourselves.

Moving on, there was an ambulance coming from behind and we were surprised to see that the car slowed down and made way for it, just like human-driven vehicles around us.

Overall, we had a smooth and pleasant ride listening to music of our liking and not worrying about how much to tip our ghost driver.

One disadvantage of Waymo, however, is that it cannot stop wherever you want. While a human driver can stop anywhere, the Waymo only stops in places where it can park itself, so you might need to walk further to your destination.

Still, this is a minor inconvenience that didn’t take away from our positive experience with the robotaxi. All we have to say is that we booked two additional rides on the same day.

Hello and welcome readers! We are pleased to present you our blog discussing taxi services in the United States.

The taxi blogging field is richer than you can imagine, but we found that most blogs focus on news or specific services, acting more as practical guides for riders. Our blog, by contrast, aims to explore various new and old taxi services across the US and it means to delve deeper into their history and popularity.

This is why we decided to use our first blog post to tell you a little bit about the history of taxis. Enjoy reading!

History of Taxis

Many might not know that, but the first taxis were not even cars, they were horse-drawn carriages. The words “taxi” and “cab” make up the more descriptive word “taxicab”; taxi stands for the taximeter which tracks the mileage of a ride, while cab stands for cabriolet which is a type of horse-drawn carriage.

The first taxicab services trace their history to 17th-century France and England, with the oldest surviving mention of a horse-drawn carriage for hire coming from a source documenting a 1605 ride in London. Soon enough, the English Parliament voted to legalize and regulate cab-for-hire, creating a flourishing industry.

The English innovated the market by introducing the hansom cab in 1834. This new type of carriage required just one horse to operate and provided a faster alternative to regular horse-drawn carriages. If you’re a fan of Victorian fiction, you’ve likely read about or saw on the screen these hansom cabs driving fast around London.

Still, the era of horse-drawn carriages came to an end with the invention of the first car. Walter Bersey, an engineer who developed electric-powered vehicles in 1897, introduced his invention to the market. Bersey’s Hummingbirds soon replaced the hansom cabs. Simultaneously, Samuel introduced electric hansom cabs in New York City.

1897 was a big year for taxis, as German entrepreneurs Wilhelm Friedrich Nedler, Ferdinand Dencker and Friedrich Wilhelm Gustav Bruhn invented the taximeter. The first taxicab to have a taximeter was the Daimler Victoria, made by German engineer Gottlieb Daimler, again in 1897.

It didn’t take long for other countries to take note. Americans travelling to Europe on holiday were enthralled by these fast taxicabs whose taximeters ensured that they wouldn’t be scammed. They brought their experiences back home, and soon enough, American businessmen started importing the new European taxicabs.

From then on, the only improvement came in the shape of new automotive technology, but the old reliable taxicab still offers rides for hire and fair prices thanks to the taximeter.

Thank You

Thank you for reading our first blog post and thank you for supporting us! Go ahead and check our articles to find out many interesting facts about well-known and not so well-known taxi services across the US.