understanding taxi tipping in new york

Understanding Taxi Tipping

Collecting GPS Data• CMT Creative mobile technologies, a company dedicated to make systems that help in making taxi rides more profitable for owner and consumer.

• VTS Verifone Taxi systems, a competitor to VTS that creates softwares for

taxi rides.

Snapshot of the data-Yellow Cab

Data Dictionary –Yellow Cab• Medallion- Unique Indicator of cab• Hack_license- Identifier of the person driving the cab• Pickup/dropoff datetime- Timestamp of pickup/dropoff• Pickup/dropoff lat/long- Map co-ordinates of pickup/dropoff• Trip time in secs, trip distance- Metrics relating to the trip summary• Fare payment type- Card/Cash/Discount rate etc.• Tip Amount- Dollar amount given as tips.• Zip code/Borough- Reverse geocoded information.

Territorial monopoly?CMT VTS

While, overall there seems to be no monopoly, VTS seems to have slight edge over CMT in BrooklynThis however doesn’t translate into competition between yellow cabs.

Which Borough tips more?

As an overall trend, we can see that New York mostly tips its drivers a modest $4-5

But some of the red circles near Brooklyn and other parts bordering on greater new York and the JFK airport have a much higher tip.

Do New Yorkers tip based on how far they travel?

How do people prefer to pay?Majority of people pay by card , while still many people pay using cash.

How is the tip recorded in case of a cash payment.?

Do New Yorkers ask the drivers to simply “keep the change” in case of cash payments?

Is the tip recorded properly?Cash Card

Almost all trips which have been paid using cash show a zero tip amount.

This is almost impossible, as people would tip using cash

This could be an indicator that tips are not recorded when the fare is paid using cash.

How far do New Yorkers go?Early morning Office Hours Afternoon and early evening Evening and night

More long distances, could be joggers taking a cab to central park

Shorter distances, could be people taking a cab to office if they missed a subway.

Shorter distances, could be colleagues going together for lunch

The longer distances return, people taking cabs back home?

Traffic in New York• The average speed at different parts of the day is calculated using the

pickup date&time, dropoff date&time.

• Then the speeds are plotted for each latitude and longitude

• The red dots indicate low average speed, which could translate into more traffic, the blue dots indicate a greater average speed.

• As expected, Manhattan and the financial district have high traffic and it reduces as we step away from Manhattan.

Factors affecting tips

Cutoff amount

More speed doesn’t necessarily mean more tips

More time does mean a lesser tip

More passengers does not imply more tips.

Newly arrived competition

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Uber data- Snapshot

Data dictionary-Uber• Dispatch number- Base company code of the New York Taxi and

Limousine commission that dispatched the Uber• Pickup datetime- Timestamp of pickup• Affiliated_base_num- Base number of the company associated with

the pickup• Location Id- Pickup location ID for Uber• Borough- Respective Borough of New York in which the pick up took

place

Market for Uber

• Similar to the yellow cab, Manhattan serves as the biggest market for Uber, closely followed by Brooklyn and lastly Queens.

UberYellow cabs

Jan 2015 Uber performance in New York

Uber has almost no Business in the Bronx borough

Brooklyn has better business compared to Bronx, even though it is also pretty less

Manhattan proves to provide more business even though there are dry days in between.

Similar to Bronx, Queens has slightly a flat business trend across January