
The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge' - sageabilly
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-guardians-of-londons-black-cab-knowledge?trk_source=homepage-lede
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djhn
I previously read another very good piece on "The Knowledge", which has some
interesting perspective from an applicant and student.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-
tes...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-test-
knowledge.html)

There's something to be said both about "doing things right" having a certain
beauty over "doing the right things", and "doing the right things" being
vastly more important than "doing things just right".

There are parallels to anything from higher education, to computing, to
productivity, to art, to academia...

~~~
dang
That article and another have had threads on HN:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knowledge%20london%20points%3E...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knowledge%20london%20points%3E5&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0).

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personlurking
I worked for a delivery company in the Bay Area at two different times and the
first time I had to learn every street of two cities, and the second time I
was provided with printed out turn by turn directions for another city. The
'knowledge' part was horrible to learn but I eventually enjoyed knowing it
(during my time with the company), while the printed GPS part was easy to use
the whole time.

So the question becomes is there a reason nowadays to learn the 'knowledge'
part by heart? Not really. It's nice to know while you need it but is
otherwise quite useless information because it doesn't teach you anything.

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kodis
Interesting article, but it failed to make mention of to what extent GPS based
navigation apps have made acquiring "The Knowledge" obsolete. I'd hate to have
spent the months or years of study required only to find out that similar
routing information now fits in a shirt pocket.

~~~
graeme
Is there any evidence on this? Anecdotally, I have a far better experience
with cabbies who don't use GPS. They are far more likely to know good routes.

There's a possible bias in that the better cabbies may be less likely to use
GPS in the first place of course.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The Knowledge isn't live. It won't let you know about accidents or traffic
pile-ups you should avoid.

I suppose you get to learn traffic patterns over time, but without live
traffic reporting there's no way to avoid getting stuck in gridlock around an
accident.

Traditionally, aspiring London cabbies would buy a small scooter with a clip
board and putt putt along the standard routes.

I'm wondering now how much of that experience can be replaced with Street View
now.

~~~
bolchevich
Street view itself is out of date (Charing Cross footage was taken around
August 2014). It won't be able to show you non-static nuances, or road
conditions. For example, some sets of lights may be more notoriously slow than
others to change. Street view won't show you which roundabouts has the bigger
problems with congestion, etc.

You're right that The Knowledge itself is not "live" however for those who
pass the test and do become cab drivers, they will inevitably get near-live
data as they drive around doing their job, and conversing with other drivers,
police, council workers over the course of time and learn about changing to
traffic conditions.

~~~
Scoundreller
I think TheOtherHobbes is referring to Google Maps and Waze, not Streetview.
Google Maps and Waze, by collecting GPS movements from users, absolutely will
learn about light timings, which roundabouts are congested and when, etc. with
enough of a sample.

