Analysis of GPS logs uncovers multimillion $ NYC cab scam | Hacker News Reader

Analysis of GPS logs uncovers multimillion $ NYC cab scam

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

52 pointsMykalMorton24 comments

And we all wondered why they so adamantly opposed having GPS installed...

No. No, we didn't wonder. We knew and they knew.

i don't see how that makes sense. the fraction of drivers doing this, according to the report, is small. so if there was a popular objection then it must also have included people (a majority) who don't do this.

perhaps people simply value privacy, even while doing their job.

[also - note how the bad behaviour of a minority is being used to justify the loss of privacy by the majority; this happens again and again]

Why would a cab driver have an expectation that his location be private when driving people around in a cab? That makes no sense.

you really think the customer knowing a driver's location, or someone seeing them go past on the street, is the same as a centralised record?

Not at all, when did I say that? I said it makes no sense to think a cab driver has any reasonable expectation that the location of his cab would be private in any sense when it's in service and carrying passengers.

As a frequent cab rider, I'm happy to know that the location of the stranger's car that I just jumped into is tracked and recorded at all times.

Why do you think this information should be kept private?

Why do you think this information should be kept private?

Maybe because, as with the demise Netflix Prize, the data can be correlated with some other dataset to identify individuals who ride in the cabs.

There's also the drivers who would get paid in cash and "forget" to record the fare. And various other ploys (lot harder to take out of towners around the block six times when they're watching the GPS map).

Also, popular objection doesn't strictly mean a majority. It means the head of the Taxi Worker Alliance objected. And like any union boss, his motivations aren't strictly inline with what's best for the all workers.

As one who has taken taxis on a daily to weekly basis for the last ten years, I've never understood how on earth a Taxi Driver can pull scams on their passengers. I flag locally, call for a pickup, as well as take cabs from airports.

I've done this thousands of times in ten years.

In _all_ of that time, the closest I've seen to an errant fare (keeping in mind, I make the same trip hundreds of times with dozens of taxis drivers, as well as having Google Maps give me detailed distance information) is low tire pressure on a Taxi that took what should have been a $35 taxi fare to $38. It's amazing how little the "waiting time" charge varies a ride taken at a particular time. It's usually within 30-50 cents on a $40 ride at most.

I've never had a taxi driver try and determine if I was a "regular" or "out of towner" - and I rarely do more than just give them an address.

So I find it, based on my own experiences, very, very hard to believe that Taxi Drivers are engaging in any kind of widespread scam - unless they pull it on the blatant foreigners.

If I ever had a Taxi driver charge me the wrong rate, I wouldn't even dispute it with him, I'd just call their administrative oversight (which, in most cities, is the local police) and let them deal with it.

So, as much as people want to suggest "GPS Logs" are uncovering something - I'd have to suggest that by and large there is nothing to uncover. I'd be interested in seeing further details on these taxi drivers who have supposedly overcharged 100s of times - People like me would have flipped and/or called the police if they tried it even _once_ on us.

Color me dubious.

Compare:

"Hey driver, 30th and 3rd please."

"Hi, umm, do we want to go the Empire State Building next? Umm, okay, yeah, Empire State Building please." -> Flip into doubletime.

Well who didn't see that one coming?

The overcharged customers, of course... all 1.8 million of them.

Pity, as the meter in a cab is clearly visible and the regulations are posted for the passenger to see.

When I hop into a cab in NYC, I generally spend a lot more than the $4.55 this article implies the average fare should be - since $4.55 is the average overcharge, and since the overcharged rate is double.

If this was just user error I'd expect the overcharge to be near the average fare - looks to me like the cabbies are deliberately ripping off people who want to go just a short distance, probably out of irritation.

Wouldn't the $4.55 over just be metered distance? You also pay a flat fee when you get in, pay when the cab is idling, and pay for any tolls you pass - those wouldn't be effected. It's been a while since I was in New York though, and I usually tried to avoid cabs.

Yes, this is all true. Didn't add it because I didn't think it modified my point much.

The scam was primarily perpetrated by a small number of drivers, with 3,000 of them overcharging more than 100 times, the agency said.

While the 1.8 million overcharged trips is a large number, it represents only 0.5 percent of the 361 million taxi trips taken during the 26-month period the agency studied.

Given the tiny percentage, I think calling it a "scam" is a bit over the top. Who doesn't make an occasional mistake?

-------

A single cabby was accused this month of overcharging passengers a total of $40,000.

On the other hand, this was probably not a mistake. But in many cases, I would guess it was an innocent mistake.

The "innocent mistake" primarily consisted of a small number of drivers who did it more than 100 times... That's pretty telling. If it was a mistake why did they do it over 100 times?

The rules are pretty simple and no cabbie mistakenly thinks they are in Westchester when they are on Park Ave. It's quite obviously a scam, but not one that all NYC cabbies perpetrated.

I already acknowledged that some cases are pretty clearly not just human error. And I haven't really been to New York (drove through there on the way to the Boston area once), so I don't really know firsthand. However, the cliche is that New York cabbies are typically foreign and speak poor English. So I have a little difficulty thinking that they all are perfectly clear about every detail of their jobs and there are no mistakes rooted in language barrier/cultural barrier/just not knowing the geography as well as a native of the area likely would.

This is no where near as big a problem these days with navigation systems. Of course, good cab drivers with the 'knowledge' will beat the navigation system ones a lot. At least now the bad cab drivers get you there now. Without having to spend 10 minutes reading a map.

Hey, I am all for GPS navigation and the like. I have a certificate in GIS. :-D

(Not that it's done my career any good...at least not yet.)

Foreign and speak poor English != stupid. I've had very few cabbies who didn't clearly know what they were doing, regardless of whether I could understand them or not. And the idea that they don't know the geography? What is it, exactly, that you think cab drivers do?

I think 100 times in a period of 2 years is not so much, is it? 2 years is approx. 100 weeks of work. So 100 mistakes would merely mean about 1 overcharge per week. I'd only suspect the drivers that were overcharging more than once a day.

What is the value of the "mistakes" made by cabbies undercharging Westchester travelers with the Manhattan rate?

Who will write an android/iphone app for passengers to double check this?

Edit: Looks like they already exist:

http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+taxi+meter+app

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