Taxicab Tickets.
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A Description of an Ingenious Apparatus which Records in Full the Day's Work of a Motorcab and Delivers Tickets to Hirers.
The correspondence columns of certain sections of the lay Press have, of late, again included a deal of more-orless elucidatory information with regard to the alleged eccentricities of the taximeter, or fare-registering apparatus, that is R/11 played on motorcabs. Ever since the taxicab first made its appearance in Great Britain, the man i0 the street, or, at least, that section of the public hich delights to write to the daily papers, has, at intervals, professed distrust of that useful, if apparently-complicated, piece of mechanism, winch, so decisively, placed a check upon the old-time and unrestrained rapacity of the horse-cab driver. We have been at. considerable pains, icon' time to time, thoroughly to certify the integrity of the taximeter, particularly in inn 1ZA8110 for the Atli :January last. In our opinion, it remains that most of the discrepancies in fare-registration, of which these ready-penned correspondents complain, are quite easy of explanation. and, moreover, that ignorance of the principles upon which the instrument worls is the cause of nicet, of these puzzles. The taximeter itself—especially now that Scotland Yard's requirements are so stringent—is, on the whole, quite reliable. It is, perhaps, true that some of the instruments display figures which are not ,SX) large as they might usefully fie, that one type in particular allows an unscrupulous driver, by the exercise of very great ingenuity, to falsify his returns to his employer, and lastly, that, hitherto, no satisfactory method has been found to ensure that. payments for ." extras " made by passengers shall inevitably reach the owners of the vehicle. TIie. first two of these drawbacks will shortly disappear, as fast as the necessary improvements can be effected, whilst, with reference to the last-mentioned possibility of discrepancy, we are now in a position to describe and illustrate apparatus which will insure entire protection to the owner in this respect. The proper recording of " extras " and, indeed. ninny other advantages are attained by the introduction of a new recording and ticket-printing device to be used in conjunction with the ordinary form of taximeter ; this has been perfected, and it is shortly to be placed on the market, in this country, by the patentee, Nil'. V. Hertel Rogers, of Broad Sanctuary Chambers, Westminster, S.W. At present, the officials of the Public Carriage Office of Scotland Yard are, with great care, watching experiments, in actual service, with an example of the Rogers recorder, and, providing that certain stiptdations of theirs, %kith regard to the synchronization of the meelmnism, are, upon embodiment, found to be satisfactory, there is no doubt that the new instrument will come into extended use in tile near future. The further protection of the passenger and the settlement of the '' extras " problem are two factors wind/ have secured for the recorder the careful consideration of Scotland Yard. Our proposal, which -we explained at some length in the issue of the Ifith of December, for a Whip romi*e by which drivers should be required to pay in an average of is. fid. per day, in lieu el' their possible total " extras " receipts, has met with approval at the hands of many prominent owners, who, in conjunction with the manufacturers of taximeters, ridicule the idea which, we understand, lies been made elsee here, that this " extras " difficulty should be solved by the employment of two-tariff instruments. Examples of the unending confusion, which such a system entails, are not wanting to those who have any acquaintance with the subject.
That there is an actual demand for sotne form of recorder apparatus, is evidenced by the fact that the Rogers instrument has already been adopted extensively in various Continental cities—although it is of British origin, be it noted. The manufacturers of one of the best-known types of taximeter in use in this country have, too, secured a licence to construct the new machine in their works abroad.
The delivery of a ticket to the hirer, at the end of his journey, stamped with the amount of the fare, and with full particulars of the cab and its owner, has, for some time past, been a scheme which has found favour with inventors and others. There have, however, been many difficulties in the way of the production of a satisfactory device, and, amongst these, the necessity of evolving a design which shall not be expensive in itself is of primary importance, in view of the fact that the recording apparatus must, of necessity, be accessory to the mechanism of the taximeter proper.
The lingers recorder represents a successful attempt to produce 11 des ice which shall combine the duties of ticket marking and delivery, and of the continuous recording of the performance, throughout the day, of the vehicle to which it is attaelied. In that it is merely an ingenious adaptation and combination of quite-wellknown " movements," it has been possible to evolve a piece a mechanism which is not so elaborate, and therefore expensive, as to be impracticable. The complete recorder. as is illustrated heretrith by the reproduction of
several photographs can be produced at a cost wide!' is very reasonable.
The illustrations, to which we have ieferred,. clearly indicate the general arrangement of the devices employed: we also reproduce the appearance of a strip of tape, which was torn at random from a complete one that had been used on the hpparatos that is now on test on a London taxicab; we explain this record, at sonic length, later in this article. The apparatus consists essentially of a tape-recording train and a ticket-marking arrangement. The former of these two portions comprises the usual spools and spindles for the proper winding of the paper record-strip and the inking ribbon. These are driven by a separate clock mechanism ; their movement is entirely on a time basis and, therefore, calls for no additicnal work from the main taximeter drive.
Examination of the tape will reveal the fact that four independent markings are secured, viz.: from left to right, a dot for each mile completed a. continuous line representing the time during which the cab is on duty and, therefore, during which the recorder is in operation ; a line of dots to indicate the distances over which the cab moves, either " hired " or " for hire "—a dot every 80 yards; and, lastly, another row of dots, which represent regular intervals of five minutes. The first three of these markings are effected by means of small fingers, which press, as required, upon the moving paper strip and its accompanying ink ribbon, whilst the last is secured by the perforation of the paper strip by a, series of spikes that are mounted on an intermediate guide-spool over which the paper is fed. The two distance markings are effected through the agency of a simple combination of worm gear and cam-operated trip devices, which is driven direct from an intermediate portion of the main taximeter flexible driving-shaft. The relative position of the recorder and
An 18-hour mileage-record chart for delivery vans.
The testing kit at Scotland Yard.
a taximeter is shown in the photograph, which we reproduce, of the testing arrangement that has been submitted to the Public-Carriage Office authorities at Scotland Yard.
The ticket-marking and delivering arrangement, in the actual example of machine which we illustrate, consists of a series of rotary type-drums; these have to be set by hand, to correspond with the figures recorded on the taximeter itself_ It was realized that, at any rate in England, it would be necessary to synchronize these two registrations, and to provide some means whereby the figures appearing on the dial of the taximeter would automatically appear in the printing apparatus of the recorder. This now being done, by means of a simple arrangement of solenoids, and independent hand operation of the ticketprinting arrangement will not, in future, be necessary. The connections between the two instruments, in the latest arrangements, consist, therefore, of : the intermediate grip on the taximeter drive; the flexible shafting between the taximeter flag and the recording needles; and the magnetic synchronization of the face dial and the ticket marker.
The scope of this new type of apparatus will, perhaps, best be realized by a. careful examination of the strip of record paper of which we include an illustration. This represents rather over seven hours of an ordinary working day, and the portion illustrated was taken at random from a large number of daily records. Reading from the bottom of this strip we find, first of all, by counting the dots on the left, that, during these seven hours, 29 miles of actual running were completed. The second and third markings record, by means of a continuous and a dotted line, time and distance respectively : The left-hand column, into which these two markings travel oecasionally, represents the period during which the cab is not hired—it may, of course, be stationary or plying for hire; in the latter ease, the presence of the dotted line indicates that the vehicle is moving; the right-hand position gives a time-anddistance indication of all actual 'livings. This record strip commences with a, short run for hire." and, commencing from that point, we are able to trace the history of the next seven hours in very minute detail. in the following manner. Ten minutes from the bottom of the strip the driver is hired, and, after a couple of minutes' delay-denoted by the absence of a dotted line for that period, he runs for nearly 25 minutes and covers about 2:1 miles with several traffic stops en route. These last are indicated by the gaps in the dotted line, and, in fact, the frequency with which the dots occur is an actual measure of the speed of the machine at all times; on the full-size strip these variations are very clearly indicated. At the end of his first hiring, he records Is. 2d., and the amount printed on the ticket which is given to the customer is also printed on the strip in its proper position. Had extras been charged, the running record would have indicated exactly how much more than the ordinary running charge had been demanded. After this trip, he is evidently hired straightaway again, for, after a couple of minutes' interval, an 8-mile journey is undertaken, with no other delays than those due to traffic. 5s. Pd. is charged, and then follows a two-hour interval, during
which; the cab is not moved, although the time-marking proceeds normally. This suggests either a breakdown or an extended lunch-hour by arrangement with the " fare." It is evident that the 5s. 2d. fare would take the machine some little way out, and the driver, therefore, apparently waited for a return job; this supposition is confirmed by the next record, a 4s. 2d. fare—another fairly-long trip, and, in all probability, as we have said, a return one. Next follows a period of " plying for hire," over a distance of 3i miles during approximately half-an-hour. Then another " fare " is secured, who hires the cab and, almost immediately, keeps it waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour ; the journey is then resumed, and, towards the latter part of it, separated dots indicate slow running, probably in congested traffic—a supposition which is borne out by the subsequent registration of a nember of short hirings. Two shillings and eightpence is next recorded, although the distance covered is only about three miles. Another hiring then takes place at once, and rather over a two-mile run at a slow rate, and with frequent checks, secures 2s. I.0d.; evidently, on this trip, an extra is charged. Next a 10-minute prowl, and then a short run, at the end of which the driver is told to wait, and, after an interval of seven minutes, is discharged—fare Is. 8d. So concise are the markings that the short interval between the end of a journey and subsequent payment is always shown. Also, it is often possible to say in which direction a long journey has been made, owing to the indication of periods of slow speed up well-known hills, etc. The above characteristic record will indicate to our readers the extremely-comprehensive nature of the information which is secured by means of the Rogers recorder. When the passenger comes to realize that he need pay only the sum which is shown on the ticket, then will both the hirer and the owner be fully protected. In any case of dispute, if the ticket be dispatched to headquarters, the journey for which it was issued can be identified and full explanations may be obtained. Objection has been taken that the delivery of tickets necessitates a casing for the instrument, which has a hole in it, and that this circumstance invites wilful derangement. We would point out that it is possible to arrange a spring cover which will allow the withdrawal of a ticket but, not the insertion of any deranging instrument. Again, it has been suggested that delay might occur while tickets were being impressed; we think this is an objection which hardly merits criticism ; the delay would be no longer than that which occurs nowadays owing to the giving of change, examination of the dial, and so on. An interesting development of the recorder has been designed by Mr. Rogers, in the form of a similar instrument for delivery vans, without, of course, the complication of charges. The record is made spirally on a round card, and this is divided into five-minute divisions through an 18hour working day. Total mileage, total lengths of wayside stops and approximate speeds are clearly shown by this instrument. It is cheap, and this is a fact which should bring it into extended use; already a large number has been sold to horse-ran owners, and considerable business is anticipated with the proprietors of motor vans.