Londoners hit by a 48-hour Tube strike are being encouraged to taxi-share to keep the city moving. It's an idea that makes sense on any day of the year - but can the notoriously reticent British really take it to heart? If Waterloo station is a hive of frenzied activity most weekday mornings, at rush hour on Wednesday it's full to bursting point. Outside this London rail terminus three taxi marshals in bright yellow vests are handing coloured cards to passengers joining a steadily growing queue. Welcome to taxi-sharing, British style. A two-day strike by Underground drivers has prompted this experiment in communal cab travel.
Cheaper fares The black cabs are taking up to five passengers per trip - compared with the average of 1.5 - and the more efficient use of capacity means more efficient queues. The scheme is also running at London's other major rail termini on both strike days. The system promises fares per head of around a third of the metered price, not to mention less noise, disruption, congestion and pollution. Even the cabbies themselves will gain, according to Transport for London, because the total charge per journey will be higher once the individual fares are added together. And they'll still be busy.
But there's a strange thing. People seem prepared to abide by organised taxi-sharing on a day of crisis, but left to their own devices on a normal day they seem to have qualms. You can see it every time you step off a plane or a train and meander to a busy taxi rank. No matter how long the wait, or how expensive the taxis, you will see single people getting into five-seat taxis and heading off on their own. How good it would be if people could just co-ordinate. If the businessman, the two older ladies, the schoolchild and the dreadlocked traveller are all going to the Comfort Inn in the city centre, why not all go together? So, what's stopping them?
Simon Fanshawe, author of The Done Thing, a book about modern manners, says the idea will only be embraced outside times of crisis if there are authority figures organising it. "We're emotionally stunted as a country, we're hopelessly buttoned up and get embarrassed if people talk to us half the time," he says. "There is a very peculiar shyness among the British middle class, I mean if you catch someone's eye on a Tube, people blush. People like rules of engagement, when there aren't rules... we don't know what to do." Discomfort of strangers Without being told to share by someone in charge, many people will revert to a natural setting of not feeling entirely comfortable. Jo Bryant, etiquette adviser, says the value people put on their privacy should not be underestimated. "Because taxis are that bit more expensive, people see it as almost paying for the privilege of someone taking you from A to B without having to interact with other people like on a bus or train," she says. "Because we're a bit more reserved, sharing can be quite a shock to the system."
But of course travel to many places in the world and taxi-sharing is the norm, for both economic and cultural reasons. In New York this autumn, 1,000 new "share cabs" will take to the streets with their destinations clearly displayed, allowing passengers heading in the same direction to hail them. Organisers claim everyone will get a 50% fare discount as long as there is more than one passenger. And go to Greece and you will have to get used to taxisharing. Drivers will stop to pick up additional passengers who shout out where they're going. In the UK, that might seem a bit forward.
O autorovi| Stránku připravila Marta Pelechová
