Cab Company Research Articles

Microtargeting control: Explicating algorithmic control and nudges in platform‐mediated cab driving in India

AbstractWe discuss algorithmic control and nudges prevalent in the gig economy in relation to extant management control literature. We draw on an analysis of archival data and interviews with drivers and executives of app‐based cab companies in India. Comparing algorithmic control with direct control, we explain the increase in the scale and scope of automation that enables detailed driver profiling and segmentation, which is crucial for microtargeting control mechanisms and controlling driver earnings. Explaining nudges vis‐a‐vis indirect control, we highlight the role of mental processes and clarify the labelling of control mechanisms as nudges. Furthermore, we show how nudges are interwoven into algorithmic control as they capitalise on and feed into it. We also substantiate the discussions on information asymmetry by explicating the calculative apparatus that underlies the asymmetry.

Propensities and Second Order Uncertainty: A Modified Taxi Cab Problem.

The study of people’s ability to engage in causal probabilistic reasoning has typically used fixed-point estimates for key figures. For example, in the classic taxi-cab problem, where a witness provides evidence on which of two cab companies (the more common ‘green’/less common ‘blue’) were responsible for a hit and run incident, solvers are told the witness’s ability to judge cab color is 80%. In reality, there is likely to be some uncertainty around this estimate (perhaps we tested the witness and they were correct 4/5 times), known as second-order uncertainty, producing a distribution rather than a fixed probability. While generally more closely matching real world reasoning, a further important ramification of this is that our best estimate of the witness’ accuracy can and should change when the witness makes the claim that the cab was blue. We present a Bayesian Network model of this problem, and show that, while the witness’s report does increase our probability of the cab being blue, it simultaneously decreases our estimate of their future accuracy (because blue cabs are less common). We presented this version of the problem to 131 participants, requiring them to update their estimates of both the probability the cab involved was blue, as well as the witness’s accuracy, after they claim it was blue. We also required participants to explain their reasoning process and provided follow up questions to probe various aspects of their reasoning. While some participants responded normatively, the majority self-reported ‘assuming’ one of the probabilities was a certainty. Around a quarter assumed the cab was green, and thus the witness was wrong, decreasing their estimate of their accuracy. Another quarter assumed the witness was correct and actually increased their estimate of their accuracy, showing a circular logic similar to that seen in the confirmation bias/belief polarization literature. Around half of participants refused to make any change, with convergent evidence suggesting that these participants do not see the relevance of the witness’s report to their accuracy before we know for certain whether they are correct or incorrect.

Clorhexidina al 0,12% y ácido acético al 5% como desinfectantes de cepillos dentales

El presente estudio fue de tipo observacional comparativo; para lo cual se analizaron 40 cepillos dentales de la marca OralDent, los que fueron usados durante un mes por los integrantes de la Cooperativa de taxis “Simón Bolívar” de la ciudad de Riobamba, Ecuador; con el propósito de comparar la eficacia del ácido acético al 5% y la clorhexidina al 0,12% como desinfectantes. El análisis microbiológico arrojó la presencia de microorganismos en los cepillos dentales usados por los individuos que voluntariamente los cedieron para el estudio, tales como: C. albicans en mayor proporción, seguida de S. viridans, S. epidermidis y S. mutans, A. tubingensis, K. pneumoniae, E. coli, E. faecalis, P. vulgaris. En las muestras con concentraciones de microorganismos de 100.000 UFC/mL, una vez generado el proceso de desinfección con clorhexidina al 0,12% existió una disminución a valores menores de 20.000 UFC/mL o su eliminación completa. El ácido acético al 5% logró una asepsia en el 100% de los cepillos dentales sin importar la edad o el género del individuo que lo utilizó.

They Stole Him Out of Jail: Willie Earle, South Carolina’s Last Lynching Victim by William B. Gravely

Reviewed by: They Stole Him Out of Jail: Willie Earle, South Carolina’s Last Lynching Victim by William B. Gravely Selika M. Ducksworth-Lawton They Stole Him Out of Jail: Willie Earle, South Carolina’s Last Lynching Victim. By William B. Gravely. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. xxvi, 309. $29.99, ISBN 978-1-61117-937-8.) They Stole Him Out of Jail: Willie Earle, South Carolina’s Last Lynching Victim by William B. Gravely is an important local history of the last lynching in South Carolina. This history illustrates how the seamless corruption of security forces, judiciary limitations, and jury nullification combined to protect lynchers. The split between the FBI and the state judiciary created space for the lynchers to manipulate the system and avoid punishment. Someone robbed, stabbed, and beat a white taxi driver, Thomas Watson Brown of the Greenville Yellow Cab Company, in February 1947. Brown claimed it was a large black man. Police arrested Willie Earle, who was five feet, nine inches tall, 150 pounds, and a drunken veteran, claiming that he was the [End Page 523] perpetrator. A mob of taxi drivers broke Earle out of jail, with no resistance from the jailer, on February 17, the day Brown died from his injuries. They beat Earle so hard that they split the butt of a rifle; they repeatedly stabbed him and finally blew half of his face away with a single-barrel shotgun. Later federal investigation showed that the police probably misidentified Earle, and only circumstantial evidence connected him to the attack. Earle’s death set off a political firestorm, leading to a federal-state turf war and overt, smirking jury nullification. The case received an enormous amount of press attention in the North. Inexplicable mistakes and decisions by the state prosecutors, as well as white supremacy, led to a jury refusing to convict the confessed, grinning, open members of the mob despite overwhelming evidence. Gravely has made masterful use of his sources. He utilizes multiple manuscript collections, memoirs, African American press accounts, white local newspaper accounts, the letters and notebook of renowned British journalist Rebecca West, court documents, and interviews with Earle’s mother, Tessie Earle, and several others. The deaths of some of the major players left gaps that were hard to fill about motivation and the coordination of the accused lynchers’ stories. Gravely is an accomplished scholar and author, a professor emeritus at the University of Denver. He is also a native of Pickens County, South Carolina, where the lynchers murdered Earle, which gave him certain advantages in accessing interviews with witnesses. Gravely’s writing is engaging and lyrical. The first chapter hooks the reader. The author weaves his analysis throughout the chronological text, keeping the state-federal fight between J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and the state of South Carolina judicial system front and center. The masterful use of language and the clear writing style lead the reader through the court proceedings. This work has a few weaknesses. The chapter “Discovering Willie Earle” discusses Earle’s life and character, but in that chapter, only two pages discuss Earle’s character and life, his epilepsy, and his arrests in 1946 for drunkenness. The most salient, and tragic, sentence in this chapter explains the mob fury: “The specter of the violent black male dwarfed any reasonable effort to find out about the real Willie Earle” (p. 92). Earle’s veteran status needs more attention. The epilepsy is given short shrift by the author. The reader will come away with a clearer understanding of how Jim Crow, judicial competition, white supremacy, and corruption prevented the enforcement of rights for African Americans against lynching in the South. This work ties local history in South Carolina to the national and regional racial movements of the time, making it important for both historians and interested casual readers. Selika M. Ducksworth-Lawton University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire Copyright © 2020 The Southern Historical Association

Mining open datasets for transparency in taxi transport in metropolitan environments.

Uber has recently been introducing novel practices in urban taxi transport. Journey prices can change dynamically in almost real time and also vary geographically from one area to another in a city, a strategy known as surge pricing. In this paper, we explore the power of the new generation of open datasets towards understanding the impact of the new disruption technologies that emerge in the area of public transport. With our primary goal being a more transparent economic landscape for urban commuters, we provide a direct price comparison between Uber and the Yellow Cab company in New York. We discover that Uber, despite its lower standard pricing rates, effectively charges higher fares on average, especially during short in length, but frequent in occurrence, taxi journeys. Building on this insight, we develop a smartphone application, OpenStreetCab, that offers a personalized consultation to mobile users on which taxi provider is cheaper for their journey. Almost five months after its launch, the app has attracted more than three thousand users in a single city. Their journey queries have provided additional insights on the potential savings similar technologies can have for urban commuters, with a highlight being that on average, a user in New York saves 6 U.S. Dollars per taxi journey if they pick the cheapest taxi provider. We run extensive experiments to show how Uber’s surge pricing is the driving factor of higher journey prices and therefore higher potential savings for our application’s users. Finally, motivated by the observation that Uber’s surge pricing is occurring more frequently that intuitively expected, we formulate a prediction task where the aim becomes to predict a geographic area’s tendency to surge. Using exogenous to Uber data, in particular Yellow Cab and Foursquare data, we show how it is possible to estimate customer demand within an area, and by extension surge pricing, with high accuracy.

Ethiopian taxicab drivers: forming an occupational niche in the US Capital

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes the relative roles of cultural and structural factors in the emergence and solidification of taxi driving as an ethnic occupational niche among Ethiopian immigrants in the Washington DC metropolitan area within the wider context of globalization and immigrant integration. An ethnic occupational niche is the concentration and specialization of members of an ethnic group in a particular occupational activity. Using data from the US Census Bureau and in-depth interviews with 25 (male) Ethiopian cab drivers and three Ethiopian cab company owners, it examines the factors that affected the entrance of first-generation Ethiopian immigrants in this occupation since the 1980s. This research demonstrates that mixed embeddedness or the interplay of structural factors such as blocked mobility as well as cultural factors such as the strong social networks that exist among Ethiopian immigrants were important in the induction of new immigrants into taxicab driving. The demographic composition of the Washington metropolitan area and policies of the DC Taxicab Commission that allow for fairly easy entry of new drivers in the taxicab business also facilitated the emergence of this occupational niche.

Meru Cabs: past perfect and future tense

Subject area Business/technology strategy. The purpose of the case is to enable the students to understand the following: how technology implementation can change the face of business like cab service? How information technology deployment can influence competition? How investment in company's IT infrastructure affects the bottom line? Study level/applicability The case can be discussed at Master of Business Administration (MBA)/Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (PGDBA) level students as well as executive education program. It is aimed at graduate level and postgraduate level management courses such as management information systems, strategic information systems, and technology management. Case overview Meru Cabs, started in April 2007 at Mumbai, was one of the firsts to provide “radio taxi” service in India. Meru Cabs delivers a reliable taxi service by concentrating on three C's, namely customer, call centre and chauffeur. Much of its growth can be attributed to successful deployment of the technology. This case presents the growth of Meru Cabs and how it has differentiated itself by utilizing the technology to attain market leader position in the four cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore, where it operates. Also the case discusses about the future of cab service in general and what it has in store for Meru Cabs. With the flurry of cabs service coming up in every city and the competition getting intense, the case put forth the opportunities and challenges existing for cab companies in general and Meru Cabs in particular. Expected learning outcomes To enable the students to understand that technology is a strategic tool: to enhance customer relationship, to manage business operations, to achieve sustained competitive advantage and that forms an integral part of company's growth and/or expansion strategy. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Radio Cabs - How Do They Work in Delhi?

Radio Cabs cater to the major chunk of the commuters of Delhi from/to airport, railway stations etc. Addressing the concern of safety and hassled fares, radio cabs entered the Delhi transportation sector half a decade ago. Even though the charges are higher unlike those of local taxis and public transport the service delivered by radio cabs is highly reliable. My study examined the Radio cabs market in Delhi through various interviews with people associated with radio cabs. Interviews were conducted with the tourist taxi services also who see the radio cabs to be their contenders. These interviews widened my knowledge scope about the cabs market. Also, I got a clear picture of the norms followed and transactions amongst the driver, company and the customer discussed later in the paper. The role of government is minimal, deals only with the licensing system of the new cab company, registration of the cabs and provision of the electronic meters based upon the category to which the cab company would fall. There are certain problems mentioned customers during the interviews. Therefore, I have proposed solutions to address those issues in the conclusion section of my paper.

Before and after A Night Out: The Impact of Revelation in Bangladesh

Before and after A Night Out: The Impact of Revelation in Bangladesh

Legal Consciousness and Dispute Resolution: Different Disputing Behavior at Two Similar Taxicab Companies

This article examines how workers perceive the laws and rules that regulate their workplaces and how these perceptions differ depending on whether one works in an organization with a high level of worker-manager cooperation versus one with a more conventional hierarchy. Using two cab companies as examples, this article explores how these divergent organizational structures generate different grievance cultures that in turn encourage alternate understanding of available choices and appropriate means for resolving such disputes. This work expands the current sociolegal literature on legal consciousness by focusing on formal and informal workplace grievance resolution and perceptions of workplace conflict. In exploring the critical decision making regarding grievance resolution, this article begins an important discussion about workplace empowerment and legal consciousness. This study uses qualitative methods to examine 33 open-ended interviews. The use of qualitative methods permits a vibrant dialog that illustrates the legal consciousness of the subjects. The subjects' own words reveal their comprehension of rules, regulations, and procedures as well as their individual relationships with the grievance-resolution options in their workplaces. To shout at a cheating coworker or to slash the tires of his car? To approach a manager who treated you unfairly or to bring a formal grievance? To accept unfair treatment without taking any action, or to quit outright?

An extant Hess incubator on display.

To the Editor. The only surviving Hess incubator known to this author is currently on loan for display at the Spertus Museum in Chicago (Fig 1). A specimen from a forgotten era of neonatal medicine, this incubator belongs to the first generation of machines that led to the birth of early premature infant stations—the ancestors of modern neonatal intensive care units.1–3A popular story has it that Stéphane Tarnier (1828–1897), the renowned French obstetrician, conceived of “incubators” similar to “brooding hens” (coveuses), upon seeing the chicken hatchery at the Paris Zoo in 1878. He then asked Odile Martin, an instrument maker, to construct similar equipment for babies. Martin used an ingenious “thermosiphon” heating system, in which circulating hot water between a double-walled metallic cage warmed the air inside and could hold 2 premature babies. In 1880, the first set of Tarnier incubators was installed at the Paris Maternity Hospital, the world's first neonatal intensive care unit.2Over the next 3 decades, many incubators were developed incorporating the basic design features of the Tarnier incubator. In the early 1920s, Dr Julius Hess in Chicago designed an incubator in which he used electricity to generate hot water that circulated between the inner and outer walls of a metallic box. Hess made modifications to administer oxygen by free-flow. In May 1922, he founded the Premature Infant Station at Chicago's Sarah Morris Children's Hospital (of Michael Reese Medical Center)—the first such facility in the United States.4 Hess also developed the Ambulance Box—a miniature version of his incubator. Collaborating with the City of Chicago and the Chicago Yellow Cab Company, he organized an infant transportation program in Chicago at a time when only a handful of premature baby stations existed in the United States.The demonstration that incubators could save babies generated such great optimism among the professionals and the general public that incubators became symbols of great promise that all medical ills can be cured by machines—a tunnel vision prevalent even today.2,5 The incubators thus remain one of the most enduring symbols of the successes and (paradoxically) the failures of the modern neonatal intensive care.Although a large number of Hess incubators were used during the first half of the 20th century, only a few have survived. For decades, 1 specimen had been a hidden gem, on display in relative obscurity at Chicago's International Museum of Surgical Science. Only recently has its importance been brought into the spotlight. For now, it stands on a pedestal under a portrait of Dr Hess, polished and cleaned up, and it is a beauty to behold.

Roof Collapse, Taxi Cab Company Garage, Champaign, Illinois

A timber truss roof system collapsed over a garage area on August 10, 1986. The collapse was predicated by the owner's lack of maintenance of the roof membrane. The collapse mechanism was clearly defined, employing the interview of an eye witness. Recommendations for the rehabilitation of timber truss buildings are given.

Evaluating Uncertain Evidence With Sir Thomas Bayes: A Note For Teachers

Consider the following problem: On the night of March 1, 1986, in Lorain, Ohio, John Doe was struck by a speeding taxi as he crossed the street. The taxi was driving the wrong way down a one-way street and did not stop. An eyewitness thought that the taxi was blue. Doe has sued the Blue Cab Company for his medical expenses in a tort claim. Lorain has only two taxi companies, Blue Cab and Green Cab. Green Cab is the dominant firm with 85 percent of the taxis registered in the town. According to uncontroverted evidence, the eyewitness was 80 percent reliable in identifying the color of taxis; that is, he was able to identify the correct color of taxis 80 percent of the time, under conditions approximating those of the night of the accident. The case is being heard by a judge. Suppose the legal standard is “preponderance of the evidence.” What would you decide? How much weight to place on imperfect evidence is a problem of statistical inference. The correct statistical methodology of combining such evidence is called Bayes Theorem, after Sir Thomas Bayes, who devised the method.

Liability and Individualized Evidence

Cases like Smith v. Rapid Transit, Inc. present a problem to students of tort law. Here is a typical hypothetical case-I will call it Smith v. Red Cab-which presents the problem more cleanly than the actual case does. Mrs. Smith was driving home late one night. A taxi came towards her, weaving wildly from side to side across the road. She had to swerve to avoid it; her swerve took her into a parked car; in the crash, she suffered two broken legs. Mrs. Smith therefore sued Red Cab Company. Her evidence is as follows: she could see that it was a cab which caused her accident by weaving wildly across the road, and there are only two cab companies in town, Red Cab (all of whose cabs are red) and Green Cab (all of whose cabs are green), and of the cabs in town that night, six out of ten were operated by Red Cab. Why is that the only evidence she can produce against Red Cab? She says that although she could see that it was a cab which came at her, she could not see its color, and as it was late, there were no other witnesses to the accident-other than the driver himself, of course, but he has not come forward to confess. If we believe Mrs. Smith's story, and are aware of no further facts that bear on the case, then we shall think it .6 probable that her accident was caused by a cab operated by Red Cab. I think it pays to spell this reasoning out; what follows is one way of doing so. If we believe Mrs. Smith's story, then we believe that a cab, indeed exactly one cab, caused the accident, so that there is such a thing as the cab which caused the accident; and we believe that it was a cab in town that night. Thus we believe:

The Trouble with Statistical Evidence

Statistical evidence-frequently known as mere statistical evidence-has suffered at the hands of its critics for some time now. The preceding piece by Professor Judith Jarvis Thomson2 continues to refine the attack on such evidence-at least where it is the only evidence to support a court's judgment. In candor, I must admit that I am far from sure that Professor Thomson's attack is wrong, though I think it probably is. Perhaps it would be better to say that I find her primary argument unconvincing. Professor Thomson mounts her argument largely in three hypothetical cases to which she applies the usual rules of evidence (or, in the last case, epistemology) to reach the conclusions that a civil defendant should be found liable, that a criminal defendant should be found guilty, and that a fact may be said to be known. Professor Thomson regards these conclusions as highly unsatisfactory, however, and isolates the problem in the statistical nature of the evidence supporting each result. She offers the implication that statistical at least by itself, provides insufficient grounds for a verdict in favor of the proponent of that primarily because it lacks a causal link to that which is to be proved. What is needed, she argues, is individualized evidence, which, by her definition of the term, provides the necessary causal linkage. A very brief recap of the three central hypotheticals may be appropriate. Of the three, the first seems clearly the most important. It involves a hit and run automobile accident caused by a recklessly driven taxi. Identification of the taxi proves to be impossible, but it is known that the Red Cab Company owned and operated sixty percent of the taxis in circulation on the night in question. Since by assumption no other relevant facts are known, it is asserted that the probability that the accident was caused by Red Cab Company is sixty percent.3 Because this evidence meets the preponderance

Disabling Sickness and Nonindustrial Injuries among Drivers and Other Employees of Certain Bus and Cab Companies, 1930-34, Inclusive

Disabling Sickness and Nonindustrial Injuries among Drivers and Other Employees of Certain Bus and Cab Companies, 1930-34, Inclusive

Trade Marks and Trade Names. Unfair Competition. Cab Company Held Entitled to Preliminary Injunction Restraining Use by Competitor of Similar Cabs

Trade Marks and Trade Names. Unfair Competition. Cab Company Held Entitled to Preliminary Injunction Restraining Use by Competitor of Similar Cabs

The Right of a Railroad Company to Grant to a Cab Company the Exclusive Use of Its Cab Stand

The Right of a Railroad Company to Grant to a Cab Company the Exclusive Use of Its Cab Stand