Hailo Boston, a local app-based taxi service, recently polled 200 Boston taxi drivers to get the low down on what cabbies have to deal with on a daily basis.
The results are in – it turns out Boston cab passengers are not afraid to try and skip fare (paging Transit Police) and when they do pay, a good amount of them tip 5 percent or less.
They also like to brawl.
Here is a quick look at what Boston’s 6,000 licensed drivers regularly contend with:
- Nearly 70 percent of drivers reported having passengers evade
fares at least once a month. In London, by contrast, this typically only
happens once a year to drivers. - While most passengers tip between 10-15 percent, more than 20
percent of passengers tip 5 percent or less. In comparison, the average
tip in Chicago is 17 to 20 percent, while New Yorkers typically tip 22.5
percent on a $13 average fare. - While the majority of Bostonians are on their best behavior, more
than 25 percent of drivers experience people fighting over cabs once a
week and a quarter of the drivers polled reported negative interactions
with passengers over a seven-day period.
The study also shows that about 60 percent of cab drivers spend between a quarter and half of their shifts without passengers and many work more than 60 hours a week.
“The findings demonstrate that cabs waste time and fuel searching for passengers, while many people looking for cabs are unable to find them,” said Vanessa Kafka, head of the Boston Hailo office. “This study shows there is a real opportunity for Hailo to help make Boston taxis work better for both passengers and drivers.”
According to Hailo, nearly 14,000 drivers, cabs in New York City spend nearly 40 percent of their time empty. In Toronto, taxis drive empty 60 percent of the time, and even in London, with its highly regarded taxi system, drivers on shift are looking for passengers 40 percent of the time.
But it’s not all bad news for Boston cabbies. More than 60 percent of drivers who have worked in other cities say that Bostonians tip more than the other locations where they have worked, despite the 20 percent pool that tip under 5 percent.
A surprising 83 percent of cab drivers prefer to have passengers tell them which route to take; they are in fact required to ask passengers if they have a preference on how to get to their destination.
“I would love to see Boston’s taxi industry become more efficient for cab drivers like me and for my customers,” said Alex Beker, one of Hailo’s driver partners and a Boston taxi driver of 30 years. “Compared to many other cities, Boston’s cab drivers are quick to adopt new technologies. It allows drivers and passengers to connect in a more efficient way, helping me fill my backseat with more passengers. Hailo was founded by cab drivers like me to make the system work better for everybody and I think that’s exactly what we need.”
