The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
tfl.gov.uk
The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
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Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#2It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfriars" is a bridge and a station and a road all in slightly different places. There are at least 4 Green Lanes...
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#3It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfri…
It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues.
There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#4It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfri…
It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues. There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
I 100% agree. Its been that way for at least a decade (garmin GPS before Google maps). It's a weird sort of self sustaining monopoly/club/political-group now.
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#5It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfri…
FYI 'One Poultry' is indeed an address to a building, 'Poultry' is the road. And it's 'Blackfriars (Railway) Bridge', 'Blackfriars Road' & 'Blackfriars Station'.
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#6Famously, cramming The Knowledge into your head induces plastic changes to your hippocampus:
https://www.nature.com/news/the-knowledge-enlarges-your-brai...
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#7It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfri…
It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues. There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
You're right about that SatNavs are very effective but what are you actually comparing? London Cabs aren't the only taxi service in London. You can choose to drive in London. You can take the tube. What's the issue?
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#8It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfri…
It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues. There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
Please don't take this as a personal attack, but I see this sort of attitude as the crux of the tech "disruption fetish". I'm guilty of the same thing often, but I have to push myself to see past the tech solution and to the human expertise it is replacing. Also this isn't so much a defence of cabbies, I don't use them and think them expensive an antiquated. It's a defence of the process being a better one than the relatively basic tech solution we have so far.
Google Maps just isn't that smart yet. Yes, you can absolutely drive a car through London on a route yourself and it'll work fine, for some definition of "fine". On the other hand a taxi driver is supposed to be able to perform to a far better definition of fine[1].
Google Maps accounts for traffic when it's bad. Does it account for traffic patterns before it gets bad? Maybe, badly. Does it account for bad traffic that it knows is going to happen because it chatted about an event in a certain place with another cabbie over tea earlier, or because it knows that there's a road closure for a race this afternoon? No. Google Maps is so far from taking into account things like this, but they are natural for a human, particularly one with expertise.
Google Maps will take you to a place, but what if the place you need is more nuanced than that? The stations in London often have multiple entrances, and walking from the wrong entrance to your platform could be 5 minutes and you'll miss your train because of it. Cabbies can take you to the correct entrance because they know this. Does Google Maps account for this? Maybe, badly. What if you need to get to the stage door of a theatre? This could be a few minutes away from the public entrance, but cabbies are supposed to know these sorts of landmarks. Does Google Maps account for this? No. What if you want to go to The Dorchester, let's hope you get directions to the hotel and not the town.
It's easy to excuse getting the wrong entrance to a location, or being off by 15 minutes on a journey, when it's just you driving yourself through London, but this doesn't work at the scale of public transport, and doesn't work if you are buying a service from a provider who is supposed to have intimate knowledge of the city.
Tech can probably manage these things at some point, but like with so much "disruption", we've solved a basic version of the problem and declared it better and stopped listening to people who have collectively been doing it for a century.
[1]: Some taxi drivers in London are crap because they can't be bothered. I'm talking about the hypothetical good, qualified, cabbie.
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't matter these days. Google Maps just works, I've driven in London dozens of times with absolutely no issues. There is zero reason to continue to have such a complicated test for taxi drivers when satnavs are so effective, all it does is raise costs for riders and make it harder for people to become drivers.
Please don't take this as a personal attack, but I see this sort of attitude as the crux of the tech "disruption fetish". I'm guilty of the same thing often, but I have to push myself to see past the tech solution and to the human expertise it is replacing. Also this isn't so much a defence of cabbies, I don't use them and think them expensive an antiquated. It's a defence of the process being a better one than the r…
Someone must have done a cabbie vs. satnav challenge surely?
Does Google definitely not account for future events? If I plan a journey for London Marathon day, say, does it not even warn me of delays?
Does it take in warnings of engineering works (eg for rail travel)?
Re: The Knowledge of London for cab drivers
#10It's worth nothing that London is a huge mess of random streets. There is no grid pattern here, its still using the medieval street patterns, plus a whole set of one way routes and no stopping areas. That's why this is so complex. Roads are also all named, sometimes confusingly. "One poultry" is a road, not a building, you'll need a number to go with that to get to a building. "Crutched Friars" is a street. "Blackfri…
We nearly got a grid after the great fire in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren had a plan[1]. In any case, the fire caused a major redesign, so not quite medieval, but not far off.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-3...