Hi Tom, I was London Taxi driver from 1960 to 2002 when I retired, I was 24 yrs old when I started.. OK to get to my point, SAT NAVs came in before I retired and the then Transport Minister stated that the knowledge was now redundant for Taxi Drivers, his name was Stephen somebody, another plonker. Anyway passengers often used to ask me about them and I used to quote just one from many cases to point. About 11.30 one eve I was in Kensington about to go home , Taxi sign off. when a distressed young lady waved franticly , so I stopped, she was sobbing so much she couldn't speak so I told her to get in the back and calm down, ( I thought she'd been attacked). It turned out she was 19 yrs old and American, she had arrived in London at 2pm that day on a stop over from Europe to the USA and was leaving at 8 am the next day, she had spent the day sight seeing /shopping and having a meal in a Restaurant. The problem she had was she had left her Hotel paper work in the Hotel and didn't know where it was nor what it was called, she had asked several Policemen to help her but they said it was hopeless. So I gave it some thought and asked her if she could remember the first shop she went into, fortunately she had a receipt for a scarf she bought from Selfridges. So to cut a long story short , I asked how long it took her to walk from the hotel to Selfridges, she said about 15 to 30 mins, I then asked her if she saw anything of interest on route , she said a lot of open space on her right. So I got to tell me if she turned left or right when she left the hotel , so basically by her tracing her steps I figured out she most likely came from a hotel off the Bayswater Rd. So I drove up and down the streets off Bayswater Rd and when I got into Leinster Terrace she shouted "that's it " at the top of her voice when she saw the Leinster Towers Hotel. She was in tears when she got out . Put that into a Sat Nav. I have loads of other examples of lost or confused passenger stories. I would have to start my own YT channel to tell them. Be lucky.
I’ve been a cabbie 27 years and I’ve slowly succumb to the odd use of a sat nav, more to the fact that the size of my town is growing at an alarming rate, also some people get in and all they have for an address is a post code, plus my old age😂 Thanks once again for your vids Tom really enjoy them ✌️❤️
So true Tom, there’s no equivalence to having The Knowledge. Back in my student years I did pizza deliveries for Dominoes in the Isle of Dogs. I did it for two years and by then I had all of the roads and streets memorised. I can imagine how the Taxi drivers brain is wired! All the best
I feel you've got to have a passion for maps and routes and stuff to be a black cabbie. Like if a 10-year-old kid is not remotely interested in music or guitar you simply will not be able to force-teach them into becoming a good guitarist. You either have passion for something or you don't... we're all wired differently. When me and my best mate travel somewhere he's like "I ain't got a clue where we're going, I didn't even look because I know you'd have worked everything out about 5 days ago" lmao 😅
Pizza delivery was one of the best jobs I ever had as a youngster - between the base pay, tips and fuel money (paid cash at the end of every shift for a profit of about £20 when petrol was 80 p a litre!), I came out with £13/hr ish at 18 years old in 2007 to drive my car around, listening to music and learning my town like the back of my hand. It was great!
When I was doing pizza GPS was in its infancy and even less reliable than it is now. There was a few of us who could hammer out deliveries whilst barely looking a map or AtoZ. Drivers who didn’t use GPS also had much better retention and retrieval when another job on the same street came up. This is also apparent now in my current HGV role. I use google/Apple Maps for reference whilst driving with my eyes open and listening to traffic reports. The guys who use a nav religiously can’t generally remember which junction they used off the motorway or even in some cases which motorway it even was. Or AtoZ
I'm trying to gain a better knowledge of London myself, recently I have been switching off my waze app and trying to deliver food just based on memory... it hard but I'm finding shortcuts I never ever knew were available! Great channel!
The other key thing you didn’t mention is perception. If it takes 10mins but you spend most of it in a queue on Shaftesbury Avenue, it might be better to take 11mins and go round trafalger square because the customer will probably enjoy the journey more and not feel like they’ve paid to sit in a jam - especially if they’re a tourist and enjoy looking out the window!
4:33 setting Waze to motorcycle will put you on bus lane routes and taxi only routes. However, it will also put you on routes with congested traffic because it'll assume you can just skip it. 😕
I was in London during the resent tube strike, used 2 blackcabs one was using Google maps,the one that wasn't was definitely the better drive and driver.
You should try catching a cab in Sydney! It is usually a miserable experience, but sometimes even ludicrous. I approached a cab rank after alighting from a suburban train, there were about 5 cabs on the rank. Naturally, I went to the first one. He didn’t speak English but handed me a street directory. I have bad eyesight and it was dark, I was standing with a friend, I knew the address, but didn’t know how to get here. I went to the one behind, he couldn’t speak English either - beyond telling me to direct him. I went to number 3. He was willing to take me, but the other two were adamant that I couldn’t go with him - he was at the head of the row. Fortnightly I had a mobile phone with me (not in common use in 1994), went to the other side of the railway station and called the cab co. ( there were only one or two in Sydney). Cab.number three very shortly pulled up - he wasn’t overjoyed at seeing me again,, and told me he was quite sure, he would use his directory. Oh dear! It must have been our orate, as we wound up at a point where the road was cut off by a newly finished A type road to expedite it he movement of traffic to the outer suburbs. Knowledge? I don’t think any Australian cities even include literacy being a criterion for having a licence to drive a can. Actually I coul tell you dozens of something hilarious experience I have had with taxi drivers in Sydney - or Melbourne. I restored? You know my email Address. . .keep up the great videos and news letters Tom. R.D
A classic example is being able to use the Chelsea harbour run through the barrier plus a few others where it states on the signage buses & taxis only. See Hazelbury Rd off Wandsworth Bridge Rd plus certain turns like the left from Regent St into Oxford St if you needed Selfridges or the right turn from Buckingham palace Rd into Eccleston St. I had a young woman from Wardour st to Waterloo instructing me that Google was showing me driving away from where she'd got in from as oppose to me driving towards Waterloo. I told her to look up & see the direction of the parked cars. One way. She hadn't zoomed in to see the arrow on the street. I love it whilst driving a job you hear their sat nav come on & they try to mute the voice.
I love it when I hear the sat nav going in the back. They almost never query your route ahah! You almost feel like saying "oh do you want me to go your way sir?"
i'm a domino's driver so i use a combination of the 2, i'll punch in my gps because im lazy, and it gets me out of the store quicker but i know of the cut throughs to take along the way, what roads i can kick up the speed a little more, and the traffic lights to try and avoid. system works and its a fun job,,, when its all going to plan
Your a pizza delivery driver, your not delivering blood or important things. It's not that deep pal, just follow your satnav, the customer can wait for their pizza lol
@@AB-dr8wq i simply hate being stuck in traffic, that alone is reason enough to keep track of where i can cut a little time out. plus i get £1 per delivery for fuel mileage, so the more i deliveries i make the more money i make from that. Most of the drivers dont think about it that much but i enjoy putting that little bit extra thought in. hearing a customer surprised how quick ive got there always puts a smile on my face lol
I do the same thing as well but for me the quicker I get my parcels out my car the quicker I'm free. So best to be really quick for me and knowing how to cut traffic can save a lot of time. I know a banned turning near my house and I always get around it legally and save myself 2 or 3 minutes doing it
It would be interesting if you raced against waze have a friend use it and you try and get to the same location to see which method is quicker and by how much
Great video as always Tom. Local knowledge does beat the sat nav, as you said so many variables. I'm a delivery driver often driving through the same area. When I see the lights at commercial road turning red, I turn left onto Ratcliffe Lane and right into Bekesbourne Street, cutting out that light. And if I'm lucky I get a green light at the butcher row traffic lights too
I had a smartly dressed guy hail me on Lower Sloane St a few weeks ago asking for a brothel. I said potentially there are working girls in an apartment block on a certain street not too far from here but that's a gamble for you as I'm not a pimp. Cheeky sod said no I'd prefer to be certain so are there any proper brothels that look like a brothel from the outside. I just gave him the shit face look & he said softly so you're not taking me then...No was my departing cry
Here in Canberra, as a cabbie, I use a mix of knowledge and navigation. The navigation portion I only ever use when I’m going to suburban/residential streets that are not common, so called “last mile” sort of thing. For the types of fares you show in your videos, to points of interest/hotels in the city centre, I never use navigation. Even if not using it for navigation per se, I do use and love Waze for congestion, accidents, and speed limits, which often change on a regular basis.
Great content. I have no desire to become a black cab driver but watching your content is interesting and you’re very engaging. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
Tom, just got back in the cab following a two year lay off due to covid. Love watching your videos and am playing 'catch up' as I've only just discovered your channel. You're a natural in front of the camera and can only be a benefit for the trade in general. I'm hoping a lot of non drivers watch you, as I think that you are a great advocate for the trade. Well done and keep it up!
I used to have many different routes to do City/Canary warfe to Heathrow.... Usually cross tower bridge, nip through to Elephant taking a tasty back route, do Lambeth, nip up Pimlico, through Knightsbridge and turn left out of Knaresborough Place Bish bosh job done.
Hey Tom, love the vids! Find watching the fair so therapeutic. I watch them after my night shifts in the operating theatres. Can we please have more vids where you show the price of the jobs, I’m not from London and always worry about the cost of grabbing a black cab but seeing your vids I can’t believe how cheap it is. Love the channel pal. Thanks.
i'm a delivery driver in Essex but grew up in East London. Over the years i've essentially learned a dumbed down version of "Essex Knowledge"... From my previous drop I can visualise on a topdown view where my next drop is, most of the routes to get there and cut out majority of rush hour traffic, roadworks, road closures. this was massively helpful after the storm and trees blocking roads, I could swing around and take another route. I only really use satnav for traffic data and speed cameras in all honesty, and every single journey i play "beat the satnav" and i'm regularly 3/4/5 minutes earlier than predicted, even when not going mad and breaking speed limits. It's a very cool thing to have and show off, especially when i've got new starters sitting in the passenger seat and touch the satnav once or twice to confirm.. In and around South Minster, Dunmow etc there's not much phone signal anyway so satnavs are useless there anyway, and by the time the satnav "decodes" the address into a location, I've already made 30 seconds of progress, which over a 10 hour shift, really does add up
So precisely all of this mate. Was in Earl’s Court on the weekend and the people I was out with wanted somewhere to do karaoke. I said ask a cabbie, he’ll take us there and everyone else wanted to Google maps and take an Uber. We did that and got to the destination where the karaoke bar had been shut for a year 😂
@@TomtheTaxiDriver it was exactly that mate! Tried telling them I watch you and that’s why I trust black cab drivers but they thought it was too expensive, even though a black cab managed to get us from Heathrow to our hotel (ibis by West Brompton station) and to Stamford bridge in 45 minutes at Saturday on lunch time in time to make our stadium tour as our flight was delayed. Makes me a little smug to know I was right though 🙈😂
Thanks Tom. We all know london so well that the satnav will get you there in the end, but not as quick as a taxidriver 95% of the time☝🏻There are areas in Mayfair, Covent garden, Hampstead that dont even have coverage(and thats the real reason uber drivers et al sweat when pinged to go into central london. Of course, many taxi drivers use waze/googlemaps just to make sure there are no serious hotspots of traffic on route, but the sat nav won't account for taking a route where i can u-turn in an area just to move to a better route or bus lane that saves sooo much time. I can keep writing but its pretty obvious that if you know london so well, then relying on a sat nav and coverage will always be the second option.
When Grosvenor Crescent is jammed from Belgrave Sq, sat nav will tell you to sit in it. A left turn out of Wilton Place onto Knightsbridge then a cheeky U turn onto Piccadilly Under/overpass and you're awayyyyyyyy...until you hit Apsley House 🤣
Satnavs are especially bad on bikes. Like I will know there is a bike lane or if I'm on a rental E-Scooter I cannot use a certain road for example but sat nav won't so will suggest all routes using that forbidden road. Likewise I know I can just cut through a pedestrianised zone but sat nav don't know that. Sat Navs like you say are best used as a aid not something you follow blindly or to replace navigation skills you have in your head. I know a lot of local knowledge in my city which means I know I can cut through quicker than google , like walk to the bus stop with satnav 10-15 minutes , my way using the shortcut that most non-locals don't know about 5-7 minutes depending on if I'm going to walk very fast. I think its best to think of a sat nav as a guide and a navigation aid in the absence of local knowledge. It knows a route sure but like you say doesn't mean it will be the best or quickest route.
'Google says' is the bane of any medical professional as well. Technology itself is great, and don't get me wrong, I use it too, (everyone does!) but it's an additional tool to my own knowledge and experience. Lot of crossover with your job and sat nav I feel, much like your chef example. There's no substitute for simply knowing your shit in the first place.
When I'm in a taxi in a city other than London & the driver puts something into a sat-nav, I always snigger a bit. Once when I was in Nottingham, I told the taxi driver the address, & he asked for the postcode!
It's Joe from the short tour earlier today the 16th. Terrific job I'll be sure to keep up your videos and hopefully in a few years if we visit London again see you again.
Not been driving my cab for over 5 years as my wife was I’ll looking to get back in the saddle I might need a knowledge school to freshen up my knowledge Tom?
Video makes some very good points. Sat nav isn't the be all and end all. It is a valuable tool to have, but it probably isn't suitable for driving a taxi in cities such as London. I use sat nav (Google Maps) for business trips, and it is quite good, but 15 seconds spent setting the destination aren't as important to me as they are for a cabbie.
Great video about all points. One time we needed to go to Gatwick airport from Putney and booked a mini cab. I know the route I would take. The driver went off on the pretty route and after about 20mins. We ended up at a place it would have taken me 10. We then joined the rest of the route I would have taken. For me satnavs come into their own when in a strange town/city etc. And especially when abroad.
As always, a very enjoyable video Tom. However, I must confess that one of my gripes with cabbies is the sheer number of them who will drop off in the most stupid of places, often causing obstructions. To make matters worse, it can often take up to 2 minutes or so for the cabbies to receive payment. In the meantime, the obstruction continues. Unless there’s a wheelchair/similar involved, I will NEVER drop off in a place that will cause an obstruction. I don’t care what the client asks for. But, I will always advise the client ahead of time anyway, so it’s rare for them to ask me to do something that I know will cause an obstruction.
Satnavs with voice recognition are a thing so I'm not sure that point 1 really applies. As others have mentioned, Waze is useful for the congestion advice and alternate routes although I regularly ignore Waze in parts of London I know as it does send me down insane routes along residential streets. There's one route I drive a lot where the Waze way is 100% the wrong way and I never use it. It'll recalculate, use my route and the arrival time remains the same.
Have you actually driven someone to Scotland in the taxi, or are you talking about personal trips? Just imagining what the fare from London to Edinburgh would be!
I have in fact watched a couple of videos where a taxi driver races someone using a sat nav. The second race the sat nav user got beaten by quite a distance
Just in relation to up to date traffic information and road hazards would you guys like to have a UHF radio network in all of the black cabs so you can send/receive alerts for drivers? Also it would be beneficial when there's a large crowd in a particular place all looking to hail and cabs nearby can service that demand.
The satnav can t beat experience for example do you cross town or go round town the time of day ie schools.out or rush hour in or out you have to weigh it all up
Point 1 use voice activated to use sat nav 2 use it as a guid so u see where it is and as a guid and more so traffic use. Why not set up a cabbie style sat name that shows all taxi routes that taxis can take and learn ur routes to do it. It if was linked to TFL u could use it as saftey of u brake down or get into trouble attacked or the likes. If I all Cabs use then u could use u would see where they are and divert that and say what ranks areas are busy to avoid or even to say what’s clear
Yeah. I work as a delivery driver for a popular supermarket (heh) and although I always have the satnav on I tend to rely on my knowledge of the local area because it will sometimes try and take me and the van down a dirty track, under a low bridge etc etc. So I usually look at it and go, "ha no fuck you" (no one else in the cab so) and go my own way.
I have a challenge idea, no idea if this has been recommended before or if you've already done it. (Should really do my research before asking but oh well) Pick a point, and see if you can loop back around to that point, but you must arrive there with a fixed amount on the metre, so the metre constraint would force you to extend your route, but not by too much, and of course, not by too little. TL:DR boring idea, ignore me.
Hi Tom, seen a couple of your Getaway and Watchdogs Legion videos and enjoyed them and wondered if you had thought of doing a video on Assassin's Creed Syndicate?. It's meant to be a pretty faithful recreation of Victorian London with a similar level of creative licence as Watchdogs. Would be awesome to hear your history knowledge as you drive a horse drawn taxi around!
I don't think the argument for satnav is that they are better or a complete replacement for the "The Knowledge"... However, they are good enough to make The Knowledge (to a large extent) obsolete. There will always be a market for Black Cabs, but the satnav-powered private cabs have taken a considerable chunk out of it and will continue to eat into it. The black cabs' barrier to entry is just too high, which means the cost of the service has to be higher to make it worthwhile for the driver.
In London you’ll often see private hire or Uber vehicles making illegal turns or driving in the wrong direction along one way streets. This can be attributed to (in some but not all causes) to the use of a SatNav. Google maps is full of mistakes and too many times instructs you to make and drive these illegal and DANGEROUS turns and routes. Get a licensed Black Cab, pay what’s on the meter (no surge in prices at busy times like Uber) and most importantly be safe.
When people bark a postcode at me I then stop and ask WHERE are you going (area, street) I never, as a London cabby, take a postcode. I politely then tell them ' save the postcide for Uber/phv drivers, they cant start a journey without one'
Tom would you be interested in using your cab to donate aid to Poland. London taxis are heading there Sunday. Let me know if your interested. Expenses paid
Great video and love your channel! But you can’t believe point 4! How do you know if there’s going to be a red light or a policeman because you don’t use a satnav 😂
You look up, if the sat nav says straight, and a police officer stops you. Would you risk taking the right turn to avoid it, not knowing where it might take you?
Hello bro great content! see you suffer from dermatitis, that right ? My other half had something really similar looking on her face, don't know if you tried the antibiotic but Tetracycline worked on her and cured it completely.
I must commend you for your knowledge of such a city, as i am a tourist in London its daunting, my city Dublin is just tiny compared to London, its fuckin terrifying 😂 But i guess living their your whole life makes it easy i would bet.
Cabbies who get caught by PCO using sat navs will be advised that it is against the terms and conditions of their badge and that they can be fined if caught multiple times.
I'd have thought the whole knowledge aspect making it redundant to use a sat nav in a black cab ? Recently almost got into an accident because an incompetent cab driver suddenly slowed and eventually pulled in and parked in a bus stop as I go passed what is he doing? Fucking about with a sat nav.
What if somebody jumps in at say Carlisle Square & wants to go to Cherry Orchard Road. Would you not take the job as it’s not in London where you don’t need a sat nav or would you take it and use a sat nav as it’s out of london. Love the channel Tom still looking out for you when I am working in central 👍 I have never seen a brass house on Waze 😂😂😂
Another problem with google maps especially for regular people is that it sometimes has a road name missing, eg: Bridgend Road is just shown as part of Wandsworth Bridge Road. Also the directions feature one time didn’t account for the fact that Gloucester Terrace and Porchester Square share the same stretch of road so we missed the turn because I only read the Porchester Square road sign as we passed.
I am a PH driver and the reason why I use waze is because I want to know what’s happening on my way… You might have the whole of London in your head but you wouldn’t know if there is an accident on your way that just happened 5 minutes ago. I see cabbies sitting in traffic so many times as they mostly use the main roads.. I like your videos but with this one I cannot agree.
@@TomtheTaxiDriver I missed that part apologies. I use the waze for the exact same things. Check what route it does recommend and I just go down on it. Job done. By the way I love your vids and hopefully I’ll see you on the roads :D
@@exile2828 there are one or two that are common knowledge among cab drivers for example there was a place inside a hotel in Lancaster Gate. These are the sort of things you learn after getting your licence through cab driver WhatsApp/Twitter etc. Similarly certain strip clubs pay cab drivers commission to bring new customers to their establishment so if someone asks where should they go we recommend the places that will pay us.
its really crazy to think that your brain is basically Waze on steroids haha. I don't know how anyone can fit the amount of info that cabbies have to remember in their head
