A Taxicab History

By: Ann Brown

People always have appreciated the comfort of hired, chauffeured driven transportation. The development of online taxi booking services makes it even easier. In the time of world round journeys the taxi airport transfer plays especially important role. Let's look back what history is behind our Heathrow Airport online cab.

Taxi industry history goes back to early 17th century. At that time horse-drawn for-hire hackney carriage services began operating in both Paris and London. The number of carriages was regulated by royal proclamations and the Hackney Carriage Act (1635) is the first taxicab legislation in London. There are still remains in the law of old rules, for example there is a requirement that the cab must have enough height in the back of the vehicle for the passenger to sit with a bowler hat on comfortably.

In the 19th century, faster and safer Hansom cabs replaced the old Hackney carriages. They were followed by battery-powered vehicles that, however, enjoyed only a brief success due to impractical batteries weighing eight hundred pounds.

At the end of this century German inventor, Wilhelm Bruhn constructed the taximeter. This device measured the distance traveled or time taken determining an accurate fare. It turned to be so useful and popular that the name taxicab - usually abbreviated to taxi - derives from it. The taximeter was built in the world's first dedicated taxi called Daimler Victoria after the constructor Gottlieb Daimler. In 1897 it was bought by Friedrich Greiner, a Stuttgart entrepreneur who started the world's first motorized taxi company.
Petrol powered taxicabs began operating in Paris in 1899, in London in 1903. Four years later were introduced to New York. The era of taxi has become for good.

There were new innovations as in the late 1940s two-way radio sets. They enabled drivers to communicate and serve customers more efficiently than using call boxes. The next major innovation occurred in the1980s, when computer assisted dispatching was introduced.

The latest step in the development of taxi service is the implementation of the online taxi services. They allow everyone with internet access to order their cab independently of their whereabouts and date and time of the day. The virtual meet up point such as http://www.fairfare.co.uk even give both Passengers and Taxi Operators unique opportunity to bargain for the price of the journey. It is especially useful if you order airport cab when the price of the comfortable transport can equal serious part of your holiday spending.

All in all, nowadays we are lucky that we can any time go to http://www.fairfare.co.uk ,
place taxi request and haggle over its price.

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