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At first glance, taxi drivers and GPS tracking don’t seem to go together. After all, taxi drivers know their way around their home city better than anyone, so why should they need someone to monitor them, making sure they take the shortest route to a given destination? But as more and more cab companies begin equipping cars with the devices, both drivers and their customers will begin to see the benefits.

Cab company managers have begun gravitating toward monitoring the cars they send out on the road each day for several reasons. The first is safety. Cab drivers see people at their best and at their worst, and sometimes the worst can include dangerous situations. Threats of violence toward drivers plague cab companies in most major cities, but when managers can view car locations in real time, the chances of someone getting away with a criminal action toward a driver shrink significantly. While there will always be sticky situations that require drivers to think fast and act faster, GPS tracking allows supervisors to bring in the police much more quickly if necessary.

Second, many cab companies have seen a decrease in vehicle theft when they implement the popular systems. Cabs may seem to be an easy target for criminals, but when managers can monitor the location of each vehicle in real time, they can also see immediately if a vehicle isn’t where it should be. Law enforcement departments report that recovery of stolen vehicles progresses much more quickly and safely with tracking data than would be possible otherwise.

A third and more unusual application of taxi monitoring has been implemented by Microsoft in Beijing cabs. The data collected by monitoring cab drivers over a three month time period will be used to create navigational devices that can take advantage of the drivers’ extensive knowledge of city routes to help others on the road find shortcuts and navigate around traffic jams. While this application has yet to be introduced in the United States, a watching public can hope for a successful dry run in Beijing.

Although some cab drivers have balked at the introduction of GPS tracking devices to their vehicles, most companies view the technology as a smashing success. As implementation of the devices becomes more commonplace, drivers will benefit from increased confidence on the road and customers will benefit from lower pricing as a result of costs kept low by theft prevention and fuel efficiency.

Article Written by Greg Bartlett