

NYC taxi visualization - lalwanivikas
http://nyctaxi.herokuapp.com

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maxmcd
The taxi data just has startpoint and endpoint correct?

So the route in between each trip is just a guess?

Edit: Whoops, from the about page:

> The raw data include only start and end locations for each trip. These
> points were run through Google's Directions API to create the routes shown
> in this visualization. Of course, these are Google's best choice, not
> necessarily the one the taxi took.

~~~
peteretep
This explains some very slow drifts in the middle

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ryanmarsh
I was surprised at how inefficient some of the drivers' behavior was. I
thought after dropping off a fare they would all immediately head to an area
they knew of that might have a high likelihood of generating fares. Instead
many of them seem to just wander around aimlessly looking for the next fare.

edit: spelling / grammar

~~~
thrownaway2424
It's also the case that taxi drivers need to eat, use the toilet, do their
shopping, see the sights, etc. They aren't robots, and they don't necessarily
have to dash to the next customer in a mad scramble for survival.

Imagine if somebody made a visualization of your workday and put it out in
public. Would your manager say "he seems to just wander around aimlessly
instead of efficiently moving from one piece of code to the next. I thought
after compiling one project, they would all immediately head to the next one."

~~~
Mandelbug
The analogy is ok, but mostly fails because as a developer, we are not paid
commission for each line of code written. Whereas taxi drivers have a very
strong profit motive to act efficiently and quickly. I think your examples of
why they would deviate from this believed behavior is pretty solid on its own.

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marceldegraaf
This doesn't seem to work on OS/X Mavericks, Chrome 36.0.1985.103 beta. When I
click on "Begin", nothing happens (also no Javascript errors).

~~~
dthakur
I'm getting a 503 after it finishes loading the initial assets.

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sethbannon
Seems like this data could be used to build an app that suggests where a taxi
driver should go at any given time to maximize their chances of getting a
fare. Uber & Lyft already do this for their drivers, but I'm not aware of any
app that does this for NYC yellow cabs.

~~~
bjryan
Do they really? I just asked my Uber driver yesterday and he said that Uber
does not provide him anything like that. I was quite surprised.

~~~
dcre
An UberX driver said the same to me and I was surprised as well, but after
thinking about it, it started to make more sense. What could Uber really tell
them beforehand that they wouldn't already know, or learn very quickly from
driving around?

The driver thought Uber didn't provide the information because they want to be
able to charge surge pricing, but that cannot be right. Uber doesn't want to
charge surge prices unless they absolutely have to because they reduce the
number of rides people take.

Considering how much money Uber invests in giving away free rides and
temporarily reducing prices to increase ridership, they clearly see a lot of
value per ride, especially for travelers who are more likely to be at an
event, try Uber for the first time, and then bring that demand home to their
own cities.

Surge pricing only makes sense in situations where drivers need additional
incentive to go out in the first place.

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bernardom
That's super interesting.

I wonder why my guy wandered really slowly up Riverside Ave for like 30
minutes instead of going inland to find a fare. Looks like it's really slow
between 11am and 3pm, and constant driving otherwise.

~~~
maxmcd
The route information between trips is just a guess. So he could have really
just stopped for dinner or something.

~~~
oh_sigh
Taxi drivers don't usually stop for dinner when on shift. The closest they
will do is run into a bodega, or stop on the corner and have a streetfood
vendor hand them something into the cab.

~~~
thrownaway2424
I've seen halal carts where the taxis line up down the block and a guy takes
their order on the south end of the block and they pick it up at the north
end, just like a drive-thru burger joint.

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blaincate
I was making a heatmap for taxi data : published for first 5 days for july

[http://akuchlous.github.io/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/](http://akuchlous.github.io/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/)

maybe can help Uber / Taxi drivers figure out where to get most taxifare
pickups are!

hosting on github.io

pushing to github.io is awesome. make maps, save and push!

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amwelles
I was surprised by the amount of fares that just went a few blocks. Looks like
it should have been pretty walkable in a lot of those cases.

~~~
blaincate
[https://github.com/akuchlous/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/blob/gh-
pages...](https://github.com/akuchlous/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS/blob/gh-
pages/NYC_TAXI_STATS/taxiRideMiles.png)

data from chriswong : 22% rides are less 1 mile long

~~~
simplemind
Small nit, but guessing this is crow's flight distance which doesn't equal
path distance. Regardless, this still isn't surprising. Short rides happen all
the time.

~~~
blaincate
:-) this data is equal path as measured by odometer : I was lazy and did not
use longitude/latitude for distance. The data itself has miles travelled.

though a bit surprising : 45% of rides are single person rides. But then I
wonder : what's surprising : is it low or is it high?

~~~
mjmahone17
How is the data input on # of passengers? Could it be that it's just easier to
hit "1 person" all the time regardless? Are there cabbies that always have the
same #?

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rorydh
You shouldn't serve your assets (/js, /css) off of heroku. They aren't loading
because of the request volume.

~~~
ch4s3
I think Chris was exceeding his Mapbox limits, and that was causing problems.

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mcot2
First of all... this is really great. Really good job.

On the ipad a few things are wonky with the layout, you may want to test on
there and fix the few UI issues.

It would be cool to see $/hr precalculted as well. It may be better to make
the right side a table with each row being a ride and then totals at the
bottom too.

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WoodenChair
One interesting observation is that the mean fare is ~ $10. That's the same as
4 subway rides (each one with unlimited transfers and can take you from one
end of the city to the other). You need to be pretty rich to be riding a taxi
regularly nowadays. Taxi fares have gone up at a far greater rate than subway
fares.

~~~
sparkman55
Of course, you can also share a taxi... it may be an indulgence to hop on a
taxi alone as part of your daily commute, but it becomes much more convenient,
private, and cost-effective when in a pair or small group.

These taxi data do not seem to capture taxi capacity factor / number of seats
filled.

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kingnight
I just followed a taxi that had a 12% tip rate. I thought with the new
automated payment systems [1] they were supposedly getting 25% now...

edit: I should have read about the * before I posted, but it's interesting to
show then how much are cash/charge transactions by the discrepancy.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2012/05/14/how-3-simple-
but...](http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2012/05/14/how-3-simple-buttons-
raised-tipping-by-144-million-in-nyc-cabs/)

~~~
maxmcd
From a brief look at the data it looks like cash tips might be counted as 0%.
So that 12% average might be originally closer to 25%, but brought down by the
nulled out cash tips.

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scrumper
What's happening when I see a green blob which then turns red a few seconds
later? The cab hasn't moved, but the passenger count and fare tally have both
gone up. The cab then moves at a normal pace from that location to the next
fare, so I don't think it's missing GPS data.

Edit: just saw another comment saying the points were calculated through a
Google API, so maybe it's just gremlins in that.

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xpan
I see a taxi route on: Sunday, June 29th 1913...

~~~
zymhan
Me too, both of the taxis I watched showed 1913. This is some weird Y2K stuff.

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blaincate
it hit bloomberg news

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-14/let-me-out-here-
one...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-14/let-me-out-here-one-
taxi-24-hours-of-data.html)

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zatkin
Today I learned that Heroku is awful at keeping up with Hacker News + Reddit
traffic.

~~~
wclax04
Well it doesn't autoscale, if thats what you mean.

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mercurialshark
Wow, I totally understand Uber's valuation now. $D

But really, UberX and Lyft driving makes more sense viscerally. Taxis earn
decent money but have lots of expenses. I see potential indeed. Ha

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CSDude
To see some quick action: `for(var i = 0; i < 50; i++)
$(".faster").trigger("click") ` it gets interesting to watch at that speed.

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yock
I watched a few different cabs and they all seemed to generate around $600 in
a 24 hour period. Am I the only person who thinks this is astonishingly low?

~~~
jliptzin
astonishingly low? I thought that was pretty high

~~~
pcurve
It's a decent change. but...

\- Most people do 12 hour shift. Not 24 hours.

\- Most drivers lease their cabs at $100/day

\- Fuel bill adds up to $15-$35 depending on car.

\- There are other fees.

I think you're doing well if you net $200 in a shift on average. I think it's
an optimistic figure.

~~~
potatolicious
I was chatting with a UberX driver yesterday in NYC and apparently his
insurance is $7K a year (it's a Toyota Camry too, nothing super fancy).

That works out to ~$27 a day if you drive the car 5 days a week, every week of
the year. Not a massive amount, but significant in the numbers we're talking
about.

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wfunction
Anyone know if there is similar data available (for any city) that actually
includes real-world routes, rather than just endpoints?

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andrewrice
Hitting "next" on Chrome 35 (Win 8) doesn't do anything for me. Any ideas?

~~~
mike
I was seeing the same a few minutes ago (also in Chrome) but it's working for
me now so it's worth giving it another try.

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neobaba1289
ITs interesting to see how busy a taxi is in New York even at 3.30 in the
morning..

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keypusher
They certainly drive a lot faster when they have a fare.

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Vik1ng
OpenStreetMap attribution...

~~~
chippy
Removed at this commit.

[https://github.com/chriswhong/taxitracker/commit/8565b71ae74...](https://github.com/chriswhong/taxitracker/commit/8565b71ae74c17442354176441fc055df66dad1f)

I'm sure the developer would appreciate an issue or a pull request.

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freshyill
Does not work in Safari. Come on people, if you're using some non-standard or
cutting-edge feature, at least use Modernizr to detect it and tell users
instead of just having a completely non-functional "begin" button.

