Taxi (transport)

A taxicab, also known as a taxi or a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice. This differs from other modes of public transport where the pick-up and drop-off locations are determined by the service provider, not by the passenger, although demand responsive transport and share taxis provide a hybrid bus/taxi mode.

There are four distinct forms of taxicab, which can be identified by slightly differing terms in different countries:

Although types of vehicles and methods of regulation, hiring, dispatching, and negotiating payment differ significantly from country to country, many common characteristics exist.

Harry Nathaniel Allen of The New York Taxicab Company, who imported the first 600 gas-powered New York City taxicabs from France in 1907, borrowed the word "taxicab" from London, where the word was in use by early-1907. "Taxicab" is a compound word formed from contractions of "taximeter" and "cabriolet". "Taximeter" is an adaptation of the German word taxameter, which was itself a variant of the earlier German word, "Taxanom." "Taxe" (pronounced, tax-eh) is a German word meaning "tax," "charge," or "scale of charges." The Medieval Latin word, "taxa," also means tax or charge. "Taxi" may ultimately be attributed to τάξις from τάσσω meaning 'to place in a certain order' in Ancient Greek, as in commanding an orderly battle line, or in ordaining the payment of taxes, to the extent that 'taxidi'/'ταξίδι' now meaning 'journey' in Greek initially denoted an orderly military march or campaign. Meter is from the Greek metron (μέτρον) meaning measure. A "cabriolet" is a type of horse-drawn carriage, from the French word "cabrioler" ("leap, caper"), from Italian "capriolare" ("to jump"), from Latin "capreolus" ("roebuck", "wild goat").

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