THE TAXI. STORY OF ITS EVOLUTION. HOW LONDON SOLVED THE PROBLEM. STRICT REGULATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 64, 13 September 1911, Page 3

THE TAXI. STORY OF ITS EVOLUTION. HOW LONDON SOLVED THE PROBLEM. STRICT REGULATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS.

i. (By "Autos.") At the present time, when the taxicab business in Wellington i» going through a process of wild revolution and readjustment to the requirements of the puljlicj the &tory in brief of the evolution of the -taxi-cab and its adaptation to environment, particularly in the city of London, will bo of general interest. It, is not a story of instant success of the "Yeni. vidi, viri" order. The taxi did not a[>pnr on the fcenc ' ready made and perfect — lut less did it carry all before it. It is a story of initial failures, accompanied by heavy financial lops lasting over a number of years, of public ridicule, of chaoe and confusion and disaster. and a at la-.<-t, of hard-won success through the imposition, of police regulations a« stern and drastic almost a-s the Laws of Draco. Wellington taxi 'drivers and owners, wiio grumble at the suggested regulations { for the control of their traffic by the City Council, will find a useful object lespon in the solution of the tasi problem in the great mei.fopbhs>. EARLY FAILURES. The first- motor cab was not a. petfoi vehicle; it wae driven by electricity. Numbers of electric cafes weT& placed on the streets of London in the late 'nineties, but they wet* never anything like a success. The jarring of everyday traffic over the pavement soon •wrecked, the fragile storage batteries, and even now the electric cab cannot compete With tho_ petrol-driven vehicle. Capitalists who believed in the future of the public motor vehicle- turned from j the discredited electric cab to the now more promising petrol car, with which some progress had been made in Paris. In 1903 the London Express Motor Ser-vice-—a syndicate—^interested itself in providing London with motor cabs driven by petrol, and, curiously enough, designed like horse-drawn haneom cabs. The scheme was a failure. In 1905 the London Motor Cab Company placed on the streets a Britisk-made vehicle, with horizontal two-cylinder engine, and in that year also tlie first petrol motor cab entered the Palace Yard. of the Uouae of Commons juct six years later than tho entrance of. the first motor car into that eacred area. In the autumn oi th-? same year another Cab company — the London Automobile Cab Company — commenced operations, promising a complete fleet of 200 cabs of American manufacture, and later the Metropolitan Motor Cab and Carriage Company was formed to put a threecvlindef petrol vehicle in service. Before tbc end of the year, too. the London Motor Transit Company 'introduced another type of motor hansom with which electric light was fitted for interior illumination and hot water proes frftm the radiator for warmth. In spite rf all tlio=e. high-bounding names nnd these largo promise's there were only nineteen, mcchanirally-propelled cab's licensed to ply on tho strerts at the end of IWj. and in. June, 100G, th^fe wore only forty, -which is sufficient indication o? the halting progress of tho public motor \ clii.dc. KO, -TAXIMETER'S XHEX. At this period none of the ca.lis v, rrc fitted with taxim-eters and the arrangement with th© drivers was a daily wage of 5s with an addition of 2s in' the £ commipeion on the gross sum taken in fares. When taken off the ranks the vehicles, of course, were hired according to the police tariff, exactly thp same as the horse cabs, it bein* possible to hire a vehicles at the rate of 2s 6d an houi*. But, be it noted, the driver was not com pelled to travel at a greater rate than four miles an hour, or to let his cab on these terms for a longer p»riod ilia-i one hour. THE TURN LV THP: TIDE. So far tho niotor-cab, for it, was not yet a. "taxi," had bppn fai* from a euc cej» L la the year 1306, however^ a edeel

committee was appointed t» consider the whole problem. It sat from the etid of March to the end of July, and considered a. va'-t amount of evidence bearing on all aspects of the subject. It was tlie adoption ot the report of this committee that revolutionised the motor-cab busihese in London, and opened the road to substantial succcee. The excellent ar- 1 rangfcments, which now pic^ ail, making the London "taxi" easily the best in the world, from the user's point o-f view, arfe due to the Recommendations of the committee and, tha officials' of fccotfcmd Yard. The regulations ha\e been considered | somewhat drastic from some points ofview, bntsthey have certainly been splendidly effective. The motor-ca.bs of LonI don are an example for their efficiency, I cleanliness, and general suitability. Chief among tho reforms instituted was the compulsory installation and use of thg taximeter, with its register of distance tra-veiled. This combined with a regular mileage laxtif, fixed by law, _ contributed immensely to the popularisation of tho taxi-cab. CERTIFICATES OF FITNESS. The London taxi-cab has to bear h. ' certificate of fitness. It has to be submitted* for inspection at Scotland Yard in a. thoroughly good condition, and no carriage \vill be certified for public uee unless^it is newly painted and varnished. All cabs have "to be bnilb to certain, specified dimensions, covering such fea* tures as : height and width of body, width of doovs, width of seats^ distance between seats, and width of chaseis. The cabs must also be constructed in conformity with the regulations, many of which refer to mechanical details. It ha-3 besn no easy matler to comply with the regulations in many points,' and a large number of vehicles have from time to time been rejected, at considerable loss to both owners and makers. , BUILT FOR THE BUSINESS. Partly contingent on tho Scotland Yard regulation? and partly on tihe very nature of its nte, the taxi-cab (in London, afc any late) is eoniewhat different from the touring* car in mechanical details. This is important, in view of the fact that many of the motor vehicles plying for hire in Wellington are simply pleasure cars converted to the -taxi 'business?. On this point the opinion of Mr. J. S. Critchley, M.1.M.E., M.1.A.E.. to whose excellent paper, read before the lloyal Automobile Club, the writer i? indebted fof most of the foregoing information, is worth special quotation. "It may, t think, be taken, *' he says, "that a vehicle which runs satisfactorily as a motor-cab, can be relied upon to prove' a satisfactory pleasure caT. but, on the other hand, it does not necessarily follow that a good pleasuie car will be suitable 1 for taxi-cab* work, as with the latter there msy be many details oi refinement unsuitable for 1 the rough and tumble work which a motor-cab- is called on to perform and the more cr lfss rough handling it receives from the hands of tho driver, who does not always exercise the same care as the driver of a private vehicle. In order ta ensure the minimum of expense,, as far ai the running costs are concerned, motor-cabs must be of the fimplej-t conptructicn, and wherever possible* tho parts should be reduced to a minimum. Itcmpmberirig that every year the motorcab is subjected to a very searching inspection by the licensing authorities, at Scotland Yard and has to appear before thsm piarik-ally as-good as new, I see r.o tc.iioil why the life of a motor-cab should be taken at anything less than ten year.*.'' SOME STATISTICS. To show {h<> development of the taxi- ( eib business in LonJon the following stfitiptio <'f the London, cab trade ' during the past seven years are -interesting :— aUctoT-cabs Horsed Cabs Licensed. Licensed.

Thp, number of licensed drivPTs of motot-c.ibs ha 1 * ini'reas-sd from 124 in 1906 to (Ml oft 31?t March . 1911. whilst the latter rlale theit 1 were alf/> 1017 drivers lirpnscd for both motor and horsed cabs.

I L9O<l ... ... • 2 L 906 19 ISOG 96 1007 723 19OG ... ..". 2805 1909 3555 1910 6307 51st Mrirh.l9ll 7165 Hansom & 4-wh 11.057 10.931 10.492 0818 8475 3562 4724 4386 il.