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Bernd glided his taxi slowly along deserted Oslo streets in search of a fare. It was cold, very cold and dark, but inside the cab Bernd felt warm, comfortable, almost secure&emdash;almost. The glowing dashboard provided a sense of control and focus as the snow began once more swirling around the taxi. Bernd turned from Parkveien onto Drammensveien. As he passed the American Embassy, a dark figure materialized from the shadows and lurched in front of the taxi, causing Bernd to cut his wheels sharply to the left, sending the taxi into a short skid. The car stalled. The figure was in the taxi before Bernd could move. While drawn from the pages of pulp fiction, Bernd's plight helps dramatize a very real fear of taxi drivers the world over. The driver is compelled by the nature of his or her work to patrol a city's streets, regardless of weather conditions, the time of day, or a neighborhood's inclination towards violence. The driver has no foreknowledge of his next fare's attitude, disposition, or in extreme cases, his true intent. In addition, since a taxi is normally owner-operated, the driver must balance his or her concerns for personal safety against the necessity of a small business to remain profitable. Technology to the Rescue! With the implementation of a fleetwide monitoring system based on GIS and GPS technology and used in conjunction with a sophisticated radio transmission network, many of the day-to-day security concerns of the taxi driver can be easily resolved. In addition, the system can provide customers with a significant improvement in service and efficiency. Oslo Taxi of Oslo, Norway, is one of the first major taxi companies in the world to begin fully automating the monitoring of its entire fleet of vehicles. After extensive testing, Oslo Taxi chose ArcView Version 2 from the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) of Redlands, California, for its GIS and Trimble Navigation of Sunnyvale, California, to supply its GPS. The system also includes a custom-built radio unit from TP Radio, a company owned by Oslo Taxi. The unit includes the GPS receiver as well as a special device allowing the transmission of both voice and digital signals on the same band. The radio system uses antennas that have been installed around Oslo and transmission to and from the taxis is performed over a very high frequency (VHF) band. Radio transmission automatically switches from VHF to a cellular system when the taxi travels outside the coverage area, which includes Oslo and its suburbs. Geirulv Storaker, sales engineer at GEODATA AS, the Norwegian GIS distributor and consultant for Oslo Taxi's system, indicates that the radio signal is so strong that it was picked up on a recent trip to neighboring Sweden. After a successful pilot study in the early part of this year in which 100 vehicles were fitted with the equipment, Oslo Taxi began the process of installing tracking systems in all of the 1,800 vehicles in its fleet. It is anticipated that 800 taxis will be fitted with the system by the end of 1995 and the entire fleet will have the system installed by the summer of 1996. Oslo Taxi is purchasing the monitoring equipment and renting it to the individual drivers. Like most taxi drivers, those working for Oslo Taxi own their vehicles. Upon the completion of the full installation, the exact locations of the vehicles will be known at all times by the Oslo Taxi dispatchers. While the emergency response aspect of the system is of critical importance to the drivers, the customer response features are of equal importance in managing and maintaining a smooth flowing, time-critical taxi fleet.
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At present, two dispatchers are monitoring the taxis that have had the tracking system installed. When the system is fully implemented, six dispatchers will be required. Using a conventional system, at least 12 dispatchers would be needed to monitor Oslo Taxi's fleet of 1,800 vehicles. The Vehicle Tracking System in Operation Oslo Taxi has divided the City and its environs into different zones. When an order is received, the system automatically determines the nearest available taxi and dispatches that unit to the pickup location. By implementing this system, better service is provided to the customer, and the use of the driver's time and vehicle is optimized. The system also automatically switches the taximeter from one pay zone to another, displaying the correct charge to the customer at all times. The drivers are very pleased with the system because it provides them with displayed information concerning the location of each new passenger in a particular zone as much as 90 minutes in advance, as well as the number of taxis in that zone. They can immediately determine which zones have the largest number of passengers and the fewest number of taxis. This allows them to better manage their time so they can best serve their customers. ArcView Version 2 is also used to track the vehicle during an emergency situation. When a driver feels threatened, he or she pushes a button and the system automatically begins to send the x and y coordinates of the vehicle's location and its identification number. Positional information is updated every second and dispatchers can easily track a taxi's location. This information is automatically forwarded to the police department. Since a seamless map of the entire service area is being used, the system can immediately pan to the current location of the taxi during an emergency situation. In addition, the emergency system automatically establishes a live audio link between the taxi and the police, so that activities in the taxi can be thoroughly monitored. This audio transmission is also recorded with a device much like the "black box" in an airplane. The vehicle monitoring application was developed with Avenue, the ArcView programming language, and is integrated with the new computerized ride request and booking system, known as the Oslo Taxi Traffic (OTT), which has been provided by BNR of Denmark. The total cost of the entire system including OTT is approximately US$12 million. Looking to the Future Future plans for Oslo Taxi's monitoring system includes the precalculation of the cost of a taxi ride, regardless of traffic conditions or time of day. Other proposed uses of the system include training new drivers in determining the location of a specific address. Summarizes Jan Bekkevold, system manager at Oslo Taxi, "Our vehicle tracking system allows us to know exactly where our taxis are at all times. The result is quicker response times, better service, and greater coverage without adding vehicles, which is a true competitive advantage for our operation. In addition, there has been a large increase in crime against taxi drivers in Oslo during the past few years, with as many as 250 robberies occurring annually, often with accompanying violence. It is expected that this system will greatly decrease those incidents and provide the drivers with a greater sense of security."
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