The 38° wide-angle smart camera, known as Mobileye, will be trialled in 30 ComfortDelGro taxis for the next six months. It will be installed on the front windshield of the taxi, and will “read” different types of traffic signs while the vehicle is in motion. It then determines the risks associated with the surrounding traffic environment and provides real-time audio-visual warnings via a 49mm round-shaped display unit to drivers.
For example, if the unit detects that the taxi is travelling too close to another vehicle or a pedestrian, it will alert the cabby with a beep sound and flash an icon of a car or pedestrian.
Mr Yang Ban Seng, CEO of ComfortDelGro’s taxi business, said: “This device acts as another ‘eye’ for our cabbies, who spend a large part of their days and nights on the roads. Mobileye’s ability to alert our drivers of potentially risky road conditions will certainly help prevent accidents.”
Mr Pek Ban Choong, a ComfortDelGro veteran cabby of 21 years, agreed. “I believe this device will help me look out for dangers on the road. I will still need to be 100 per cent aware of my surroundings, but it is always good to have added help,” he said.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/comfortdelgro-experiments/1318242.html
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Leeds river taxi service becomes permanent
A free water taxi scheme that could eventually see commuters in Leeds catching the boat to work has been made permanent.
The Amsterdam-style service – trialled at the recent Leeds Waterfront Festival – takes passengers from Leeds Dock to Granary Wharf and back.
While currently operating on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only, the taxis could become a daily fixture running 7am-7pm.
Simon Tipple, who drives one of the boats, which take about seven minutes to cover the route, said: “The south entrance to the railway station is opening soon. Once that happens you’ll be able to get straight off the train and onto the water taxi.
“It’s quicker than walking, it’s quicker than being in the car.There’s a lot of flats, a lot of commuters in the dock area.”
The boats, which can carry up to 11 passengers, are being paid for by Allied London, the company that owns Leeds Dock – formerly Clarence Dock.
Bosses hope they will increase the profile of a part of the city that has struggled to attract visitors.
Project co-ordinator Lucy Whalley said: We understand how important it is to have a quick and easy way for people to be transported across the city and are confident that this will quickly become the way to travel in the city.”
Stuart Haydock, 66, took his grandson Oscar, six, for a ride yesterday. He said: “You see a bit of the city that you don’t normally see. I’ve driven over the Crown Point bridge and you don’t realise how beautiful the city is until you see it from a different perspective.”
Fellow passenger Peter Pickering, who was with grandson Leo Un, said: “I think it’s a really great idea and the fact that it’s free is absolutely fabulous.”
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/top-stories/leeds-river-taxi-service-becomes-permanent-1-6790455
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China’s two biggest internet companies have called a truce after spending billions of renminbi in the past six months to grab market share in the nascent taxi hailing app market.
Alibaba and Tencent have treated savvy, smartphone-wielding Chinese to taxi rides, and lavished tips on taxi drivers, to drum up support for their respective taxi apps – Kuadi Dache (“swift taxi”, part-owned by Alibaba) and Didi Dache (“honk honk taxi”, part-owned by Tencent).
Wang Jian, an expert on ecommerce from Analysys International, a Beijing consultancy, estimates that around Rmb2bn ($325m) was spent between January and June, but says that since then both taxi apps have scaled back the massive subsidies they are paying. “The two sides have ceased fire,” she says, after battling to a stalemate with each claiming about half of the Chinese market.
What one analyst likened to “the first battle in the world war of the internet” pitted two companies with deep pockets against each other. Shenzhen-based Tencent is Asia’s biggest listed internet company with a market capitalisation of $157bn, while Alibaba, the ecommerce juggernaut that values itself at $130bn, is due to list in the US this autumn.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6bae3d98-2497-11e4-9224-00144feabdc0.html??siteedition=uk#axzz3AiXIlsC7
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BERLIN :Knock three times on the dashboard
Serenity has many faces. This includes Helmut Seidlers. Gray hair, gray beard shadow, at the age of 73. Since five decades taxi driver, one of the oldest in the city. So: How is the job, as he was before and what happens at a time in which the industry is under threat. Apps such as uber"", in which private individuals drive, huh each other through the city; operators have lodged against their ban on opium recently by the Senate already contradiction. From limousine providers such as "Blacklane", more expensive, but solid as taxes. By sharing offerings, which make the driver of the passenger. A night shift with Helmut Seidler.
First of all the legends: as he scratched many liters of vomit from the seats, how many fruit bubbles in the car burst and how many semester he has Sociology on the hump? No, no, and not a single one. Body fluids retained its passengers mostly at himself, three times tapping on the dashboard, and UNI - oh what.
Baker was he, then a policeman, at the beginning of the sixties. Educated at the Granat Launcher, you wanted to confront the Betriebskampfgruppen of East Germany, and German military were not allowed in West Berlin. So you equipped to police, kasernierte them and gave them a few hundred mark for the month. How little that was actually realized Salim when he met one of his former colleagues who had retrained on taxi - and loose earned four times. I want also, Salim thought. So quit and in the taxi.
Made hobby into a career
Colorful years, money, "I could you tell stories, my God", he says. About it, why he must taxis even at the age of 73. "Because I am a victim of the turnaround." Mid-1980s Seidler is a good idea: hardly anyone wanted to go for the disabled, exhausting, to little space in the car. And, although the coupons from the Senate got six rides per month, no matter where. What would he do that? So he ordered greater taxes, "as one of the first in the city". Custom-made, four cars for 300 000 DM, his retirement as security for the Bank loans. When the business starts, the wall falls. For the handicapped people in East Berlin, there had been no coupons, this is unjust, the Senate finds and abolishes the voucher system again. Seidler is broke.
Seizure, end.
Therefore, he still travels, will continue until they eventually remove the taxi license him. This is the sad story. But has its good side, because he's like to, hobby into a career made and so on, who can by themselves say?
Translated from;
http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/taxi-fahrer-in-berlin-unterwegs-durch-die-nacht/10342360.html?
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Dorking cab firms warn change to taxi permits is damaging drivers' livelihoods
A CONTROVERSIAL policy that will restrict the number of parking passes for taxis at Dorking's main railway station will damage livelihoods, the town's taxi firms have said.
Bosses are angry about the changes, which mean parking permits for pick-ups at the Station Approach car park are being allocated to individual drivers instead of companies – who have been told they can only have one permit per fleet.
Owners claim the car park's managers, Watford-based Meteor Parking, have essentially told them they are not allowed to own a taxi business with more than one car operating out of the station.
John Baker, director at cab firm Westcott Cars, has worked at the station for 26 years.
He said: "They've said you can only have one because they're saying the Hackney carriage has to be in the driver's name.
"Those plates can cost £10,000 each so they're saying I have to transfer £10,000 to someone else and hope I get it back eventually, which obviously isn't going to happen.
"I'm not going to do that but they're saying that's what I've got to do to for that taxi rank.
"I can't understand how they can do it and how they can stipulate it has to be in the driver's name and not a company."
He added: "What they're saying is that those four or five other drivers I employ will be out of work, which isn't right. I just can't understand where it's all come from. We need to get it sorted out."
Drivers are also angry about the reallocation of spaces which has seen the taxi rank moved down towards the junction with London Road near the Lincoln Arms Hotel and Bar.
Alan Plaw, boss of Silver Cars, said: "It's been an absolute nightmare from the time that station was redeveloped and when notices went up.
"I got the forms and sent them off and I was told I wouldn't be issued with permits because I registered it as a company and the permits had to be issued to the drivers instead.
"It said on the form 'individual or company'. I put company and they phoned me and said 'that's not how it's working now'.
"They've also moved us down the road near the A24 so customers now have to walk 100 yards down the road for the first taxi and no-one knows where we are anymore."
The Advertiser attempted to contact Meteor Parking, but we were told no-one would comment.
http://www.dorkingandleatherheadadvertiser.co.uk/Taxi-permit-change-damaging-drivers-livelihoods/story-22723853-detail/story.html?
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