Frequently Asked Questions

Public transport systems are rarely able to seduce drivers away from their cars. What makes you think the IGT taxibus will succeed in this respect?

The key concern in the conceptual development of the IGT taxibus was to try to BEAT the convenience of the car. Only a public transport system that is more flexible and convenient than the car will win over drivers. One of the most convenient characteristics of the car is its 'jump in and go' immediacy. Using the car requires very little thought or pre-planning. By contrast, traditional public transport often forces you into thinking ahead when making a trip, especially when travelling to new destinations. People do not really enjoy this pre-planning. There is a lack spontaneity in existing modes public transport. IGT remedies this.

With IGT you just enter your destination and current location address into your cellular phone or PDA, and a taxibus will come to pick you up from your present address, typically in LESS than three minutes, which is an incredibly fast response. So IGT offers a pretty much immediate departure, and no pre-planning whatsoever. You don't have to think at all. The IGT system does all the work. In fact, even if you had no idea where your destination address was located, IGT will drop you off right at the doorstep of your destination, without you needing to consult a road map or street atlas. This is very useful if, for example, you need to visit a new business client in an unfamiliar part of town. And there is obviously no need to waste time hunting for a parking space either when travelling by IGT. It is this total ease of use that will give the taxibus the edge over the car. All you need is your cellular phone in your pocket, and your transport needs are just a key press away. In a whole range of respects, IGT is actually much better than the car.

 

Does the IGT system respond to variations in passenger numbers?

Yes. IGT is an intrinsically demand-responsive system. The number of operational taxibus vehicles on the roads is computer controlled and varies according to the current passenger flux. This means that during the rush times, the IGT system automatically places more taxibuses onto the road networks. However, demand responsiveness is not the most important characteristic of IGT. The core concept of IGT is that, for any new traveller who has just requested transport, the system searches for a nearby taxibus whose existing on-board passengers have compatible itineraries to the itinerary of the new traveller, and the system then allocates this new traveller to that taxibus. The IGT system will automatically give the driver of this taxibus electronic navigation instructions to direct him to the new traveller's current location address to pick him up.

IGT utilises economies of scale. Taxibus density is a crucial characteristic of IGT. You must have a minimum number of taxibuses per square mile and a sufficient number of passengers. If you do not, it becomes statistically harder to find passengers with compatible itineraries, so routing efficiency drops. You need to have a minimum taxibus density of around 15 to 30 vehicles per square mile for IGT to work in a fast and streamlined manner. The taxibus is best suited to highly-populated urban areas, where there are plenty of passengers per square mile.

For a major city like London or Los Angeles, you would require around 10 to 20 thousand taxibus vehicles in the fleet before IGT can function efficiently. However, if you confine the taxibus fleet to a specific area, such as the central region of a city, then a smaller number of taxibuses would be sufficient. A central region fleet would require just a few hundred taxibus vehicles. A central region taxibus service might be a good way to initially introduce IGT to a city. The taxibus fleet could later be increased to cover larger areas of the city, such as the suburbs.

 

Cars provide a high degree of personal security. How can the taxibus beat this?

IGT is probably the safest means of public transport ever devised, offering more personal security than the private car. This is because the taxibus provides a door-to-door service overseen by a professional driver, and because all details of all taxibus journeys are logged on the controlling computer system. These details include the identities of the driver and all fellow passengers, the exact route traversed by the taxibus, the place and time each passenger boarded and alighted, and for extra safety, video surveillance inside the taxibus. With the car there can be personal security worries if you are say a woman alone, or if you had to park some distance away from your destination or park in a rough area of town.

 

Much time is lost in bus journeys by the slow boarding process, where there is a need to buy tickets and where the driver must check travel passes. Does the taxibus have the same problem?

No. Taxibus travel will operate using automatic fare charging, which means that a passenger's fare is actually pre-calculated by the IGT computer system. This is done when he sends in his journey request. Each passenger would have an IGT user account, and his taxibus fare is automatically charged to this account. The fare is based on the calculated distance between the passenger's embarkation address and destination address. With automatic fare charging, the vehicle driver does not need to handle cash or fumble around with change, and does not need to issue travel tickets or check travel passes. Automatic fare charging means rapid vehicle boarding, and makes taxibus travel delightfully simple. When the taxibus arrives and its doors open, the waiting passenger simply jumps on board and finds himself a seat.

 

Isn't the IGT taxibus just a form of jitney, and therefore banned by the anti-jitney laws still in force in many US cities?

The IGT taxibus is not a jitney. Jitneys were around in the USA in the 1910s and 1920s, and were basically a door-to-door multi-passenger taxi service often run informally by local people. Jitneys were usually hailed in the street. Travel by jitney was very cheap, and essentially, the anti-jitney laws were put into place so that the bus companies of the time would not lose profit to the jitney operators. Fortunately, the legal definition of a jitney excludes any vehicle which passengers must book in advance - as is the case with the taxibus (a taxibus journey is requested in advance via a cellular telephone). So legally-speaking, the taxibus is not a jitney.

 

How does the taxibus driver verify the passenger's identity during boarding? Since no tickets or passes are shown, what is there to stop an unauthorised person from getting on?

Most taxibus vehicles will be quite small - perhaps 8 to 12 seats - and since the driver is informed of exactly how many people he is picking up at the next stop point, it would be very hard for an additional unauthorised person to slip on without being noticed. The driver could also do a simple security check, and ask the boarding passenger for his destination. If this destination corresponds to that shown on the driver's display screen, then he has picked up the right person. In any case, with each taxibus running a tailor-made custom route, it is unlikely to be travelling in a direction useful to an unauthorised passenger.