Pi-Consulting

“Walk? Not bloody likely!” Eliza Doolittle in Shaw’s play Pygmalion memorably declared, “I’m goin’ in a taxi!”. This may be the last recorded expression of unconditional enthusiasm for taxicabs as a mode of transport. In today’s world, you are more likely to hear a string of complaints about them. A taxi ride seems to be one of those products or services which consumers pay for because they have to, not because they want to.

In a world of increasing product harmonization, is a standard-issue cab ride a more or less standardized experience around the globe? On some measures it probably is. Taxi users everywhere are united in their complaints about high prices, indirect routes, surly drivers, mysteriously defective taxi-meters, and the fact that you can never find a cab when it’s raining. (Actually that last one is sort of a back-handed compliment to this much reviled mode of transport. There are moments when we actually need a cab).

However, the complaints about high prices may not always be justified. An examination of available sources on five large cities in different corners of the Americas suggests that price is only part of a complex of variables determining how many people use taxis in a given market.

In a recent comparison, Los Angeles was charging the highest urban taxi fares in the world, at just under $15 for a 3-mile ride. New York was not far behind, and both cities showed low figures for “used a taxi yesterday”. Coincidentally, high percentages of Angelenos and New Yorkers own their own cars. By contrast, both cab fares and car-ownership are dramatically lower in places like Buenos Aires and Mexico City, and taxi usage is therefore higher. The principle seems to be that fewer private cars mean a bigger pool, both of taxis and of paying customers to ride in them. If it’s true, that means there are parallel economies of scale which hold down prices and increase uptake as a result. In many cities, taxis are a ‘commoditized’ alternative to a creaking and unreliable urban public transport system. One wonders if this ‘benign circle’ might possibly be repeated elsewhere. Could traffic congestion in New York and London be reduced by slashing 80% off taxi fares? We will probably never know.

Of course a taxi ride is not just about getting from A to B. It’s also an opportunity to exchange views with one of the most dogmatically opinionated people on the planet. New York cabbies, in Pi’s experience, know very little, but have strong opinions on just about everything. If their passenger is brave enough to voice an opinion of his own from his perspex prison-cell in the back of the car, chances are he will be sharply told to “fuggeddabadit”. London cabbies, by contrast, really do know everything. Since London traffic has now apparently slowed to an average speed of less than 5 miles an hour, even a ride of a few blocks gives your driver the chance to share with you the full extent of his knowledge about the entire universe, sometimes twice.

What of the “in-taxi experience”? Depending on where in the world you hire your cab, its interior fixtures and décor will probably differ in exotic ways. The miniature football boots dangling from the rear-view mirror will be the same, but everything else will be a tribute to the uniqueness of local culture. In Mexico, for instance, the inside of a taxi is often decked out like a religious shrine Crimson ‘altar cloths’ fringed with gold tassels cover the dashboard. St. Christopher medals and images of the Virgin of Guadalupe dangle distractingly in front of your driver’s eyes. (This is so that he can take his hands off the steering wheel and clutch onto something genuinely reliable when a traffic accident is imminent). In Saudi Arabia, Pi was told, you will find cabbies watching miniature TV sets while driving you around. One nervous English passenger asked if this wasn’t a rather dangerous practice. “Not really”, said the driver, “at least it’s not as dangerous as reading the newspaper”.

The importance of in-cab appurtenances should not be underestimated. The taxi market is apparently governed by a “price-to-kitsch ratio”. Comparative figures reveal that the cheapest cab-rides are to be had in Mumbai, Bangkok, Jakarta and in the rainbow-colored ‘jeepneys’ of Manila. Coincidentally, these are all cities where taxi-drivers vie for the honor of owning the most exotically decorated taxi on the street. How different from the sober black of London taxis, (which of course cost a lot more to ride in).

The mathematical principle at work here seems to be that the fare charged for a cab ride varies in direct inverse proportion to the garishness of the vehicle’s décor. So, when hailing a cab in foreign parts, Pi advises you to keep an eye out for fairy-lights, gold trimmed crimson altar cloths, holy medallions and little flashing neon football boots. You’ll probably save money.

As this site reported on March 17th, “America’s consumer electronics (CE) industry is grappling with stringent new federal and state legislation to ensure that manufacturers ‘take out the garbage’ as they sell-in new gizmos like HDTV. The issue is a serious one, with the impending switch-off of analogue TV services likely to mean huge numbers of old TV sets getting left on the sidewalk”. We spoke too soon. A new CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) study posits an “afterlife” for many superannuated TV sets. “While some have speculated that millions of TVs would enter the waste stream, …results of the (CEA) study …show that households …expect to remove fewer than 15 million televisions from their homes through 2010. Ninety-five percent will be sold, donated or re-cycled”. Nearly half of OTA-only (i.e. traditional “over-the-air”) TV households “expect to buy a digital converter box, …and to continue using the same TV”. When the old set has to go, re-cycling is increasingly the disposal method of choice, with consumers reporting 30% more TV’s recycled in 2007 than two years earlier. Pi salutes this impressively green and responsible consumer trend! Sources: CEA, Pi.

A TripAdvisor survey has revealed that most travelers think hotel mini-bars are a swindle. 86% of the worldwide sample of over 1,600 travelers said that prices for beers, sodas and little bottles of Johnnie Walker were just too expensive. 45% claimed to have been charged two to three times the amount they would normally pay for the goods offered. 94% said they would probably use the mini-bar more often if the prices were more reasonable. But the problem goes beyond a perception of predatory pricing. Mini-bar bills seem to be a major source of indignation for guests, with a quarter reporting disputes with hotels over mini-bar charges when they check out. The introduction of weight and motion sensors, which “ring up the till” at reception when you move a bottle or can, seems to have made a bad thing worse. 16% of respondents complained they had been charged for simply putting their own items in the mini-bar to keep them cold, or for moving things around without consuming them. But hotel chains seem committed. Some hotels are even diversifying their mini-bar offerings to include items like bottled oxygen, sex kits, condoms, caviar and branded fragrances. That should turn around all those negative attitudes, surely. Sources: TripAdvisor, Pi.

Tattoos are forever. That’s the point, isn’t it? A permanent emotional commitment to that dragon or death’s head on your bicep, that pouting cutie or crucifix splayed across your shoulders? Or having the name of The One indelibly and romantically tattooed on your wrist – like, forever? Ah, but what happens when he/she turns out NOT to be The One, after all? Better call Dr. Tattoff, a growing chain of tattoo parlors in reverse, where they erase your past ink mistakes with laser technology. Most of the clientele you’ll find there are young women aged 25-35, proving that it is indeed a lady’s prerogative to change her mind. Ironically, the growing realization that you can get rid of the things seems actually to be boosting the demand for tattoos among both sexes. The price tag can be an obstacle, at $39 per square inch per laser treatment, way more than you pay to have the image put there in the first place. And the experience is uncomfortable. Strangely, however, some of the demand for tattoo removal is so that people can clear the space and get inked all over again. Source: New York Times, Pi.

Americans are on a mission to root out their roots. Genealogical searches are becoming more of a passion than a pastime, with the spread of genealogical websites and the wider accessibility of DNA testing. People are switching off the TV and spending hours online, piecing together ever more elaborate family trees. The most widely-used service is ancestry.com, owner of genealogy.com and myfamily.com, which goes beyond root tracing into family networking. Ancestry.com claims 800,000 subscribers, and 14 million registered users. Addicts spend hundreds of hours of their own time tracing their origins, and some even buy the services of professional genealogists, at $25 to $100 an hour. Says one: “I was consumed by finding our story”. One website chief explained the compulsion: “If you’re successful in the early stages, it’s like salted peanuts. Once you start, you won’t stop”. Sources: New York Times, Pi.