Hacker News Reader

Comment by amwelles | Hacker News Reader

I was surprised by the amount of fares that just went a few blocks. Looks like it should have been pretty walkable in a lot of those cases.

View on HN

Just a few observations over time for quick taxi rides aside from weather and transporting a heavy item.

- Often times rides are paid on the time of a company so people will just expense it.

- If someone, say a relator, has a client, they might opt for a taxi.

- Models will take a taxi even if their destination is only a few blocks away due to their high heels.

People will often use cabs to go somewhere when they have something to carry, even if its a short walk. Also, if the weather is bad.

looking at heat maps :

jul 2 : 2013

people are in hurry at around 8:30 AM : http://akuchlous.github.io/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/July/1/51.html

that at : 10:40 AM http://akuchlous.github.io/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/July/1/64.html

Could've been raining that day. Or it may be US/NY specific... I have only been to west coast, but coming from Europe I was really surprised what's considered a "walking distance" in the city centre. 2 blocks away and people were ready to get a cab.

Then again, the cabs were probably 5+ times cheaper than what I was used to in the UK. Maybe I'd use them more if it cost me $5, not £10 to go around 10 blocks away. One is close to spare change, the other I'd have to think about...

10 blocks is very much considered walking distance in NYC. People walk here all the time - it's the default mode of transport to nearby places. Cabs are usually used for specific reasons: transporting something heavy, bad weather, rider has poor mobility (injured leg, etc.), had a lot to drink, entertaining/working with a client, etc.

This isn't true in the rest of the US, however. The rest of the country is less walkable and the infrastructure is designed for cars first and foremost, so people learn to default to cars even for nearby trips. When I lived in California it was hard to get people to walk anywhere, even if it was only 5-10 minutes away.

https://github.com/akuchlous/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/blob/gh-pages...

data from chriswong : 22% rides are less 1 mile long

It'd be interesting if comparable data could be gotten for different cities. Wonder what the curves would look like for e.g., Boston, SF, London, Athens, Frankfurt.

Small nit, but guessing this is crow's flight distance which doesn't equal path distance. Regardless, this still isn't surprising. Short rides happen all the time.

:-) this data is equal path as measured by odometer : I was lazy and did not use longitude/latitude for distance. The data itself has miles travelled.

though a bit surprising : 45% of rides are single person rides. But then I wonder : what's surprising : is it low or is it high?

How is the data input on # of passengers? Could it be that it's just easier to hit "1 person" all the time regardless? Are there cabbies that always have the same #?

Loads of tourists are terrified of walking anywhere in NYC both due to fear of crime and fear of getting lost, and thus take cabs for distances that probably don't warrant them.

Perhaps they're disabled.

Or have small children.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com