SAT-NAV STIGMA: Nothing can beat a taxi driver’s hippocampus AND AI working together
In whatever city or town you visit, taxi drivers pride themselves on their unrivalled knowledge in the local area. And rightly so.
However, it is humanly impossible to know everything and there’s always been a defensive stigma when cabbies talk about the use of navigational apps such as Waze or Google Maps.
Before I go any further, I just want to reiterate... NOTHING can beat the human knowledge and experience of a city. But it can be FURTHERED when it comes to knowing where house numbers are on streets, knowing in advance when new road restrictions pop-up and it might help keep your driver’s licence clear of any career wrecking penalty points.
Recently the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) produced a handy guide to show cabbies how to access the popular Waze app ‘taxi mode’ alongside setting speed trap alerts.
In July taxi drivers were urged to look at the popular traffic and navigational app Waze to help keep to changing speed limits and stay up to date with new road restrictions. The real-time traffic app also has a handy ‘Taxi’ mode that considers bus lanes, unlike many other navigational apps on the market.
For years though there has been a defensiveness from cabbies that when you state Artificial Intelligent (AI) is on par with the human brain, that’s when topographic testing becomes irrelevant. Only a taxi driver will know how important instant recall of knowledge is where they ply their trade. AI is nowhere near close to an experienced cabbie’s hippocampus.
I’ll give you some examples as a working cabbie myself. A passenger hails down a taxi on Great Portland Street and asks for the nearest Apple Store. Instantly I know of them and I’m off as soon as their bum hits the seat. Without prior knowledge I’d have to type in the address, wait for the device to load, and then go whilst enduring a chorus of car horns who are stuck behind me whilst I am typing furiously.
On the way to Regent Street Apple Store, I take a completely different route to that generated by Google Maps. Experience and knowledge in the area means I can either drop the customer on the opposite side of the road or U-turn at Conduit Street if their mobility needs require a front door drop-off. Both occasions I’ve saved the passenger a huge amount of time and money when compared to AI generated routes.
AI routing is useful when you don’t have a clue! Journeys outside of my expertise require the next best thing to get me there and that’s when Sat- Navs come in.
If cabbies embrace the good parts of AI and ignore the more basic stuff targeted at those that don’t know the area, technology can be a useful tool even for the most experienced of cabbies.
