NYC Media, the official TV, radio and online network of NYC, and the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission announced the launch of an innovative voting campaign in the City’s 13,000-plus taxicabs that allows riders to choose new introductory content for the passenger information monitors (or PIMs) in taxicabs. “Be a Backseat Driver” invites taxi riders to view three potential choices for the greeting that runs upon entering a taxi and includes information about fare rates and rider safety, among other details. Riders are encouraged to vote online to choose their favorite by visiting www.nyc.gov/backseatdriver.
“At NYC Media, we’re committed to using our resources to help City agencies interact with New Yorkers in novel ways as well as bringing engaging and educational entertainment to the City’s television stations,” said Katherine Oliver, President of NYC Media. “This campaign with the TLC will serve to enrich every rider’s experience in a taxi by providing a new twist on how we deliver pertinent information.”
“Having the proper information is really key to the taxicab riding experience,” said TLC Commissioner/Chair Matthew Daus, “and the way this information is presented plays a significant role in how passengers absorb and utilize it. This innovative campaign with NYC Media will help us to communicate with taxi passengers more effectively in a fun and entertaining way that will truly put riders in the driver’s seat. Let the voting begin!”
The new greetings were created and produced by NYC Media and feature three different options from which riders can choose. In one choice, a CGI taxi zips through a video game version of the City as relevant facts are highlighted on passing street signs. In another, an animated taxi follows the curves of a map, and in the third, details are displayed in the style of an old-fashion rotating train station schedule.
Each introduction includes a welcome message from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Daus, a reminder to buckle up for safety, fare information outlining initial and supplemental charges, and where to find lost property, log a complaint or offer a compliment (by calling 311 in the City or 212-NEW-YORK outside of the City or by visiting www.nyc.gov/taxi).
It also features text detailing that credit card acceptance is mandatory for all fares and that drivers are not permitted to use hands-free or hand-held cell phones when driving, as well as where to find additional details about out-of-town fares and additional fees on the info button on the taxi screen.
New Yorkers can visit www.nyc.gov/backseatdriver where they’ll be able to watch the three greetings and vote on their favorite. The spots were designed by Roland Le Breton, NYC Media’s Art Director, and his team with input from TLC.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Chip Stern 02.18.10 at 4:57 pm
Someone just shoot me.
Charles T 02.18.10 at 5:14 pm
Backseat “Drivers” asked to choose 1 of 3. How about a 4th choice of NOTHING on a screen. Once a few responses are registered I suppose Daus and Bloomberg will say “backseat drivers” chose this one. Not having had a choice of NONE. And I can’t believe it, each of the three includes a welcome message from Bloomberg & Daus. Is this what the CC and the video screen are all about? Politicking, while drivers losing part of their paycheck every single day?
jay 02.19.10 at 2:56 pm
please please please feel for drivers they are humen bieng they have to litsen to this ad crap for whole shift again and again and again.
be little sensitive towards them too.
let them control the volume and gps in front.
a small request to tlc commissioner
Manhattanite 02.19.10 at 3:03 pm
When will these stupid cabbies learn? If you don’t like the TLC, credit cards, GPS, cell phone rules then just go back to India and work for 10 cents a day!!!
jamal launders 02.19.10 at 6:43 pm
hey its 20 cents a day in india not 1o cents! get it right
Charles T 02.20.10 at 7:01 am
Who is checking the checkers? I find it hillarious that all this work is going into the backseat advertising screen, where the checkers (TLC) hope that riders will call in and report drivers. But who is checking the checkers? Well, obviously it is the checker checkers who are checking the checkers!!! As I said it is hillarious! Recent newspapers report the FBI has a search warrant for the previous (taxi) Commissioner’s house in Washinton, DC. Everyone knows by now, that the current Commissioner when he went into office was approached with bribes and he reported it to the FBI. The Commissioner played undercover and somehow the investigation of bribes led to the former Commissioner. Well, it is unusual for taxi regulators to be caught in whatever corruption they are up to. But in DC, somehow it happened.
What is doubly hysterical is that the previous Commissioner (I was told this and it is hearsay) was the one to suggest, design, develop, and put for a vote the change from zone charges by some 6,000 DC cabs (I hope I got the number right) to putting meters in all DC cabs. Well, I had liked the DC zone system, and also the system of no medallions to pay off. If you went a short way in your zone it was cheap then, say $4 or 5 dollars, and couple dollars more if you went to the next zone. People who lived there no doubt WERE NOT CHEATED, and tourists could figure out they should not be paying much. A medallion mortgage did not get figured into the fare. It was a good idea all around.
When the previous Commissioner, the one who put this up for a vote, was already out as Commissioner (I don’t know whether term expired, or he resigned, or was replaced), but in any event when it came up for vote he was not the Commissioner, but the day after the vote for meters versus zones, the story is the next day this guy opened up a huge meter garage. And do I remember he had been a previous meter inspector, perhaps not in DC but outlying areas, I’m not sure about that. But this type of thing goes on in every city, and someone asked, why don’t they stop it. Well, look here in DC, the FBI is interested in bribery. But the other thing, proposing change to meters and then profiting by it in a big way, while destroying a very good system, well, somehow no one prosecutes them. Everyone knows it, but drivers are too tired and worn out to organize and get them. So the corruption in taxi regulation goes on all over the US I imagine. More to come
Charles T 02.20.10 at 7:11 am
I think it is San Francisco where some companies use Tech-Screens (in back seat) or maybe it is Las Vegas, and maybe the name is something else, starting with Tech, I got it off the internet. It seems in that city or any city using Tech-Screens the customer is assessed $2.50 for processing the credit card through the Tech-Screen, and that $2.50 goes to Tech Screen for payment of the Screen. Want to bet that some of that $2.50 goes as a cut to the taxi garage, as a buyout by Tech to get it in there?. And I had thought it was illegal to charge more for using credit/debit cards. Also, I happened to read that while credit card advertising systems like we know are gradually going in, in Las Vegas, the website I visited says the cabbie has the option of taking credit card or not.
Also what one informational website says about Las Vegas is that only Desert Taxi (company) can pick up on the Strip. I happened to talk with a Las Vegas driver who said that is not true. It is these types of differences, conditions, exceptions, falsehoods, that comprise the taxi business everywhere that makes it so confusing that anyone trying to report corruption, when they are done explaining, has left even the most intelligent d.a., attorney, or police officer in the dust!!! They can never know everything about the taxi business because every entity is just a little different.
Charles T 02.20.10 at 7:24 am
The most honest players in the taxi business are the drivers! I believe, given there is business there, and money to make, the taxi drivers are the most honest of all. And it is, again, hillarious, that the TLC taxi regulators are urging by screen in rider’s face now for riders to make complaints (or compliments he he) about cabbies. And many riders make complaints because they don’t understand the system. How can anyone expect riders to understand the rules and system, when the regulators themselves do not understand it. No D.A., attorney, or police can understand it, so the victimization of the cab drivers goes on and on.
The business about the percent cuts from the credit card advertising vendors (those with the screensI), those percent cuts going to commercial interests or taxi garages who rent the cabs, without the cab driver being told anything about where what is taken from their pay it is going down the line. This seems a matter for the D.A.
Hiding some destinations of where percents taken from driver’s pay in their hand, again is this a matter for the D.A. Not just NYC but cities around the US.
With all the complaints about the NYC yellow cab screens that are spread far and wide by business travelers who carry the word from city to city, isn’t it strange that NYC TLC has not thought about shutting down these screens? Or putting in a mute button that keeps it off unless the rider puts it on.
What was wrong with taxi taking rider from point A to point B, and rider pays cash, and taxi gets another fare. Not all this delay and so forth taking time from the driver’s available work time. You see, nothing was wrong with it, but the “technology people wanted to take BUCKS and BIG BUCKS out of the taxi, once they had the technology. They targeted the taxi regulators form city to city and they gave them perks, and it is the perks that are worrisome.
Who wanted to be greeted by the mayor and the TLC chairman in a taxi, who has time for that?
Charles T 02.20.10 at 7:28 am
Taxi top advertising sways the cabs on the highways. Well there are plenty of “highway-like” roads in NYC, and the large triangular taxi advertising tops were known to sway the cabs on highways and windy days. And many got rid of them for that reason, and also for starter and alternator problems because they were always “lit” even in the daytime.
Now what will happen if a Camry or Altima or other hybrid or smaller car has one of those big taxi top advertising signs and hits black ice with the wind swaying the vehicle? Anyone hear of an accident with these?
Somehow these taxi advertisers believe they DESERVE to be in a taxi cab, not that it should be optional. And, unfortunately, it is the big fleet rental garages and the TLC who let them in, but they didn’t do it for no benefits to themselves, that’s for sure.
Charles T 02.20.10 at 7:31 am
Once I saw a huge bus spin around like an ice skater on black ice, it made one whole revolution. It really showed what black ice could do.
Anonymous 02.20.10 at 9:56 am
whoever complains about everything and anything when it comes to driving a cab If you don’t like TLC or their rules in New York go back home retire do something else…leave it for the professionals
gennady 02.21.10 at 9:26 pm
I wont CMT Portal ADD toCredit CardTrip Sheet Report approv #### to
ALL credit cards. This way make them no to stolen my credit card
eslam mohamed 02.28.10 at 8:30 am
bawwwwwww bawwwwwwwwwwwwwww bawwwwwwwww
still there chip stern hopfully you still alive