<story><title>London’s Legendary Taxi-Driver Test Puts Up a Fight in the Age of GPS</title><url>http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/11/10/london-taxi-test-knowledge/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jes5199</author><text>GPS routing is awful compared to a person who knows their way around a city.&lt;p&gt;Uber drivers in hilly cities like San Francisco never, ever think to avoid climbing right up and down the steepest hills - the algorithms don&amp;#x27;t tell them not to, there&amp;#x27;s no &lt;i&gt;traffic&lt;/i&gt; and it&amp;#x27;s not a low &lt;i&gt;speed limit&lt;/i&gt;, it just sucks for other reasons.&lt;p&gt;I had a driver last week who had never heard of Valencia St, and then misunderstood the GPS voice and accidently got on the freeway, getting us stuck in cross-bay traffic for 20 minutes just trying to get to the next exit. Of course I rated that ride 5 stars, because I&amp;#x27;m not actually a psychopath ( &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-are-we-actually-rating-when-we-rate-other-people/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;jeffbercovici&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;14&amp;#x2F;what-ar...&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s going to be a long, long time before we put anything approaching the depth of information that years of experience brings into our algorithmic routing systems. And startups are structurally disincentivized from trying to, anyway.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdmichal</author><text>In relation to your comment about the review: If anything less than 5 stars is unsatisfactory in Uber&amp;#x27;s eyes, why do they even have stars? If the rating is boolean anyway (5-stars or not-5-stars), then just put a single choice: Was this ride satisfactory? It shouldn&amp;#x27;t be my responsibility to know that rating a driver who was slightly late or slightly lost 4 stars is a Bad Thing. However, if you ask me whether that same ride was satisfactory or not, I&amp;#x27;d probably say that it was. I don&amp;#x27;t necessarily want to punish people for one mistake, but I shouldn&amp;#x27;t need to rate them perfectly either.</text></comment>
<story><title>London’s Legendary Taxi-Driver Test Puts Up a Fight in the Age of GPS</title><url>http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/11/10/london-taxi-test-knowledge/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jes5199</author><text>GPS routing is awful compared to a person who knows their way around a city.&lt;p&gt;Uber drivers in hilly cities like San Francisco never, ever think to avoid climbing right up and down the steepest hills - the algorithms don&amp;#x27;t tell them not to, there&amp;#x27;s no &lt;i&gt;traffic&lt;/i&gt; and it&amp;#x27;s not a low &lt;i&gt;speed limit&lt;/i&gt;, it just sucks for other reasons.&lt;p&gt;I had a driver last week who had never heard of Valencia St, and then misunderstood the GPS voice and accidently got on the freeway, getting us stuck in cross-bay traffic for 20 minutes just trying to get to the next exit. Of course I rated that ride 5 stars, because I&amp;#x27;m not actually a psychopath ( &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-are-we-actually-rating-when-we-rate-other-people/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;jeffbercovici&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;14&amp;#x2F;what-ar...&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s going to be a long, long time before we put anything approaching the depth of information that years of experience brings into our algorithmic routing systems. And startups are structurally disincentivized from trying to, anyway.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>custardcream</author><text>Well I drive around London a lot during the day time (inside CC zone) and Google Maps is pretty damn good on Android.&lt;p&gt;I did a few years in taxis but owning a car that is CC exempt is cheaper including parking in NCP holes. Part of the reason its cheaper is after some experience driving around the city, you realise that at least half the taxi drivers are taking the piss.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;the knowledge&amp;quot; is imminently replaceable by technology and is merely a party trick IMHO.</text></comment>