[Gustomaximus]

London has an excellent service with black cabs. Completely professional service in every way. The only group I feel sorry for with the ride-sharing taking out their business.

FYI it takes about 3 years of learning 25,000 London streets to get a cab licence. And they really know it. In 4 years of London I once had a cabbie ask me where my zone 2 50m long alley was I lived on. I gave him the cross st and he was straight there then.

If interested an article on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-te...

[joncrocks]

Agreed that 'the knowledge' means that a taxi will get you where you need to go and probably by a good route, but whether you can actually find a black cab will be very dependent on where you currently are.

Certain places in Zone 1, no problem, but start moving out to zone 2/3 and the number of them about drop off precipitously. Which is where the newer app-based services shine, essentially taking away more from the minicab business (who don't have to complete 'the knowledge') than the cabs.

[wyager]

> FYI it takes about 3 years of learning 25,000 London streets to get a cab licence.

What a ridiculous waste of time in 2017. That certainly drives up costs unnecessarily.

[maverick_iceman]

What's the point of spending 3 years when you have GPS?

[Gustomaximus]

These days I feel it' more about the commitment and professionalism that goes with the effort to pass this test. In that most other countries cabbies are a lower skilled, often new immigrant job. This comes with certain problems from taking you on the long route intentionally or not, to theft and rape (note: I understand this is completely the minority bad apples). With black cabs you had non of this concern. It was a great service that bucked the usual taxi driver complaints you see everywhere else in the world.