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Aha! After a rocky start with accepting credit card payments (the striking... the threatening... the chasing... the punching), taxi drivers had conceded last year that plastic payments were helping them out. Now, two years after the program was launched, the NY Times further confirms that the credit (and debit) card payment system is mostly a success.
According to the Times, overall taxi ridership is increasing, and the number of passengers paying by card was about 20% last year and 28% last month (some people are prefer to pay by card to track their expenses). Taxi "revenues have risen about 13 percent from the end of last year, according to data collected by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. And tips, which hovered around 10 percent when cab rides were cash only, averaged 22 percent on credit-card transactions this fall." Maybe it's helped by the fact that the computer screens offer suggested tip amounts when paying, though a taxi union scoffed that drivers weren't getting higher tips—and still have to deal with the 5% surcharge cutting into the tip/fare money.
One cab driver said, "If there was no credit card, people aren’t going to take taxicabs," but another referred to the delay with credit card payments, "Because of credit cards we get customers, that’s true. But if they give us cash, you can put the gas on that; you don’t have to wait three, four days."
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They still prefer cash. It can be hidden from the government and wherever they came from, that's the way it's don
yeah, the fare can be hidden from the government. except for that little thing called the meter.
The TIP is often unreported. Which actually is why I don't understand why cabbies don't want to go to Brooklyn, even with a cash-paying fare. That means a bigger tip which they don't need to report.
Wait staff do it too...cash tips go unreported.
Cab Companies like the credit cards. There isn't a cabbie alive that wouldn't prefer cash.
i was waiting for my reciept to print out the other day, and that's really something they need to upgrade- those stupid printers that take forever to print a tiny little receipt. it's annoying for me, and they lose valuable time.
i'd like to see the tipping menu reflect old new york jargon, like "two bits" and such, and maybe show an icon of some stevedore type trying to bite a nickel in half. would add alot to the ride's end, i think.