The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
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The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
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Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#2Interesting article, but it failed to make mention of to what extent GPS based navigation apps have made acquiring "The Knowledge" obsolete. I'd hate to have spent the months or years of study required only to find out that similar routing information now fits in a shirt pocket.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#3I worked for a delivery company in the Bay Area at two different times and the first time I had to learn every street of two cities, and the second time I was provided with printed out turn by turn directions for another city. The 'knowledge' part was horrible to learn but I eventually enjoyed knowing it (during my time with the company), while the printed GPS part was easy to use the whole time.
So the question becomes is there a reason nowadays to learn the 'knowledge' part by heart? Not really. It's nice to know while you need it but is otherwise quite useless information because it doesn't teach you anything.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#4Interesting article, but it failed to make mention of to what extent GPS based navigation apps have made acquiring "The Knowledge" obsolete. I'd hate to have spent the months or years of study required only to find out that similar routing information now fits in a shirt pocket.
Is there any evidence on this? Anecdotally, I have a far better experience with cabbies who don't use GPS. They are far more likely to know good routes.
There's a possible bias in that the better cabbies may be less likely to use GPS in the first place of course.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#5Interesting article, but it failed to make mention of to what extent GPS based navigation apps have made acquiring "The Knowledge" obsolete. I'd hate to have spent the months or years of study required only to find out that similar routing information now fits in a shirt pocket.
Is there any evidence on this? Anecdotally, I have a far better experience with cabbies who don't use GPS. They are far more likely to know good routes. There's a possible bias in that the better cabbies may be less likely to use GPS in the first place of course.
The Knowledge isn't live. It won't let you know about accidents or traffic pile-ups you should avoid.
I suppose you get to learn traffic patterns over time, but without live traffic reporting there's no way to avoid getting stuck in gridlock around an accident.
Traditionally, aspiring London cabbies would buy a small scooter with a clip board and putt putt along the standard routes.
I'm wondering now how much of that experience can be replaced with Street View now.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#6I previously read another very good piece on "The Knowledge", which has some interesting perspective from an applicant and student.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-tes...
There's something to be said both about "doing things right" having a certain beauty over "doing the right things", and "doing the right things" being vastly more important than "doing things just right".
There are parallels to anything from higher education, to computing, to productivity, to art, to academia...
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#7Interesting article, but it failed to make mention of to what extent GPS based navigation apps have made acquiring "The Knowledge" obsolete. I'd hate to have spent the months or years of study required only to find out that similar routing information now fits in a shirt pocket.
It will depend very much on the types of location information passengers give, and routing flexibility they want.
To give examples based on http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-tes... , consider "Take me to that gay bar near George Court", or how to bypass "construction that has sprung up on Regent Street." It also points out that currently "black cabs have triumphed in staged races against cars using GPS".
Over time I have no doubt that more of this information will be in routing systems, but that's difficult to acquire, and crowd-sourcing attempts are subject to spamming.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any evidence on this? Anecdotally, I have a far better experience with cabbies who don't use GPS. They are far more likely to know good routes. There's a possible bias in that the better cabbies may be less likely to use GPS in the first place of course.
The Knowledge isn't live. It won't let you know about accidents or traffic pile-ups you should avoid. I suppose you get to learn traffic patterns over time, but without live traffic reporting there's no way to avoid getting stuck in gridlock around an accident. Traditionally, aspiring London cabbies would buy a small scooter with a clip board and putt putt along the standard routes. I'm wondering now how much of that…
Street view itself is out of date (Charing Cross footage was taken around August 2014). It won't be able to show you non-static nuances, or road conditions. For example, some sets of lights may be more notoriously slow than others to change. Street view won't show you which roundabouts has the bigger problems with congestion, etc.
You're right that The Knowledge itself is not "live" however for those who pass the test and do become cab drivers, they will inevitably get near-live data as they drive around doing their job, and conversing with other drivers, police, council workers over the course of time and learn about changing to traffic conditions.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#9Interesting article, but it failed to make mention of to what extent GPS based navigation apps have made acquiring "The Knowledge" obsolete. I'd hate to have spent the months or years of study required only to find out that similar routing information now fits in a shirt pocket.
It will depend very much on the types of location information passengers give, and routing flexibility they want. To give examples based on http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-tes... , consider "Take me to that gay bar near George Court", or how to bypass "construction that has sprung up on Regent Street." It also points out that currently "black cabs have triumphed in staged races against cars u…
One of the hardest aspects of automation is reproducing the quality of human labor. The first generations of automation are rarely as high-quality as handmade things but automation is still pursued because it can be less expensive.
Re: The Guardians of London's Black Cab 'Knowledge'
#10I previously read another very good piece on "The Knowledge", which has some interesting perspective from an applicant and student. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-tes... There's something to be said both about "doing things right" having a certain beauty over "doing the right things", and "doing the right things" being vastly more important than "doing things just right". There are parallels…
That article and another have had threads on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knowledge%20london%20points%3E....