November 4, 2008
Taxi-London.Net
The History
The Black Cabs' history goes back to the time of horse-drawn cabs which were called Hackney Cabs. The term comes from the French word haquenee referring to the ambling horses used to pull the original Hackney Carriages. The Hackney Carriage originated in London, England in 1625. The cabs still come under some of the old rules from the horse-drawn days. The Black Cabs are the only taxis that are allowed to pick people up from the street. There are also mini cabs in London, however they can only collect someone if they have made a prior arrangement by phone.
Before a taxi driver gets his Hackney Cab Licence he or she must pass a test called 'The Knowledge'. This is a difficult test and requires the cabbie to know the streets of central London like the palm of their hand. Mini cab drivers do not need to pass this test.
The Knowledge
Taxi drivers in London undergo a demanding and arduous testing of their knowledge of the city, its daily traffic patterns and the fastest routes between locations. Estimates suggest that gathering the basic understanding needed to acquire The Knowledge involves a full-time year of study, absorbing the information provided by street maps and travelling around the city itself.
The result is that drivers of official London Hackney Cabs are renowned for their detailed and intimate knowledge of London's streets and attractions. Strangely enough, scientific study has shown that possession and expansion of The Knowledge increases the size of the anterior and posterior hippocampi of the brain - the area that handles spatial memory and spatial navigation.
Compared with baseline controls and inexperienced cabbies, long-serving taxi drivers possessed considerable more developed hippocampi.
The Vehicles
There are currently 3 makes of vehicle licensed to ply for hire in London:
LTI (London Taxis International) - FX4 taxi, Fairway taxi, Fairway Driver taxi, TX1 taxi, TX2 Taxi & TX4 taxi.
Metrocab - Series 1 Metrocab, Series 2 Metrocab, Series 3 Metrocab & TTT Metrocab.
Eco City Vehicles - Mercedes Benz Vito Taxi.
All of these vehicles have to conform to the conditions of fitness as set out by the PCO (Public Carriage Office).
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Comments on Taxi-London.Net »
Great reading. I would love to take the "Knowledge" but I think I would need a few more years driving a Stansted Airport Taxi to London before I would be able. Airport Cabby
I am a hackney taxi driver in Aylesbury an i drive a 2002 black cab. Our drivers are now fed up as our taxi plates cost over £70,000 an recently we have spend 10s of thousands of pounds to invest in the london style cabs but now it is worthless owning a hackney taxi as all of the private hire taxis are illegaly stealing our jobs on a friday night i go to work at 6pm an finish at 4am an in that time i only earn about £200 and when my driver does not go work i do his shift and i start at 8am an finish at 5pm an i only earn £80 on a weekend. So now i am going to sell my licence and start to drive for some one else so i dont have to go through all the stress
I am currently a owner of a hackney taxi in Aylesbury an i drive a x reg Vw passat my car is expiring in 24 december 2010 so i have to buy a hackney built taxi but i say what is the point of spending thousands of pounds in buying a cab when your work is very quiet.
Hello to all the taxi drivers. I am a cab driver in milton-keynes and i drive a grey LTI tx1 cab now recently our work has been quiet for a while now as i noticed a couple of weeks ago as on a friday morning i got to the rank in town at 6am i was the first cab there after about an hour 3 other cabs came to the rank i told the operator at the base if we had any jobs booked today he said no so i got out of my cab and went to the one behind me and started to talk to the driver about work being quiet. Normally on a friday morning it wont take longer than 15 mins to get a job at the rank but that day i got my first job at 5pm so i went to work for 11 hours and all i earned was £5. My driver went at work the same day at 7pm and came home at 4am and he only made £6.50 and last week my total profit of the takings for the week including the drivers money was a sum of £14.
I am licensed and do pick-ups mainly from Gatwick Airport. The Airport Taxi office do most of the work and I and other drivers in the area get work mainly from the internet. Sometimes I wonder if I should just have a private hire license as most of the work I do is pre-booked and the local ranks have become so busy with local drivers.
I added Gatwick Airport Live flight Arrivals feature to my website which is pretty cool. Hopefully customers will benefit from it.
http://www.gatwicktaxi24.co.uk/live-flight-info.html
I never knew that there were cabs back from the 17th century. Especially around the Hackney area, which is close to where I live in North London. It has me wondering though, were the fares kinda similar to what we have today in terms of expenses?
Its sad to see work dropping off for everyone. Im a PH driver and im earning a £100 less per week than i was 10 months ago. I worked last Thursday and made £5 in 1.5 hours! I think its down to several factors… you have the credit crunch so people are saving more so the luxury of cabs is the first thing to go, people are losing jobs (a lot of them go on the taxis) the market becomes saturated. Its important to look after every customer to keep them coming back. Good luck everyone!
y lying junaid ??
i make daily about £150 £250 at weekends
bout 1100 a week profit ?
Hi
I have tried Hummingbird Cars http://hummingbirdcars.co.uk/index.php
For London airport Transfer and they are pretty good and Affordable. They Provide Transfers from all the five London Airports: Gatwick, Luton, London City, Stansted and London Heathrow Airpots. They have very well behaved Drivers who respect their customers. They also provide a MEET and GREET Service. They have well maintained Saloon, Estate, People Carriers (MPV's) and large Public Carriers.
They also dont hike their prices anytime they have standard prices throughout the year. They also provide good discounts on bookings.
Chris Fernandes
Hi I would like to request permission to reproduce material from this site. Could you contact me via e:mail please?
Hi,
If you are travelling to london and want Airport transfer than you should try HUMMINGBIRD CARS http://www.hummingbirdcars.co.uk I have tried them for London airport transfers. They provide a very good service and at an affordable price.
They provide transfer from all London Airport London Heathrow, Stantead, Luton, London City and London Gatwick.
They also provide 5 % discount on all return Journeys.
Thank you
Jai
Hi,
Even i have tried Hummingbird cars http://www.hummingbirdcars.com and they are very good.
Thanks
Tom
i am not lying driver mk but this was going on for only about 2 weeks but normally im making ₤1,500 weekly an what company do you work for i work for speeline taxis
I have just started The Knowledge in London and I will be pleased if my brain can absorb all the information.
Just wondering if I drink at the weekends will I lose brain cells and regress backwards slightly?
Hope work is picking up for all cabbies out there!