The New York Times published an interactive map tracking the concentration of yellow cabs at different hours of the day using GPS data. This is a good analogy for development practitioners who are interested in sustainable solutions for vexing problems. It prompted AidWatch’s William Easterly to write on the “Miracles of Spontaneous Order“:
“Over time taxi customers expect to get a cab on one street corner. Then taxis are more likely to cruise that street corner because that’s where the customers are. Both customers and taxis keep going to that street corner more and more as both sides come to expect the other to behave that way.”
The spontaneous order is not literally spontaneous,[1] as it depends on a number of specific and measurable factors (pointed out by commentators): e.g. traffic signals (are there any protected left-turns?); generators (where the people converge); impact of other modes of transit (buses).
Image from CabSense.com
But the question is not so much about defining how “spontaneous order” is related to cabs in New York (though future posts will be devoted to summarizing how the theory has been applied)… more than an interactive map, the data on yellow cab is not for our curiosity, but is actually utilized for a smart phone application called CabSense.
So the tech industry thinks that an app could resolve everyday obstacles in an urban jungle? A few thoughts came to mind.
Life in a metropolis requires maintaining a number of conscious but often subtle and ever-changing tactics and negotiations. Getting a cab in New York, especially when it’s raining, likely requires bullying competing passengers on the street. Moreover, it’s not news that cab drivers do discriminate on who they’d like to pick up (i.e. race comes to mind). Many cabs also don’t like go to the boroughs especially if they are near the end of your shift. In short, CabSense may be a great app for Carrie Bradshaw, but probably not for those who are not.
Second, the graph misses Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The boroughs that many cab drivers *live.* Having lived in between thoroughfares between Grand Central Parkway and Manhattan, catching a cab on 21st or Crescent Street in Astoria is often a breeze at any time of the day. Moreover, cab drivers who live in Queens often drive through Astoria before getting onto the Queensboro Bridge. Who needs a GPS locater if you already live near the cab drivers?
Spontaneous Order of Mobility
There is also a “spontaneous order” of alternative transportation outside of Manhattan’s grid. Livery cabs have been a stable of short-distance transportation in the boroughs for many years. New York Magazine’s story on one livery cab company says that it used to get 14,000 calls a week before the recession. Almost everyone I know have at least 2 or 3 car service numbers on their phones. While MTA subways and buses take you back and forth between home and office (i.e. in Manhattan), livery cab is the best mode of transportation within and between the boroughs.
When I first moved to Brooklyn in the late 1990s, I even noticed white (unmarked) vans dropping off passengers in different parts of downtown Brooklyn. It would seem that savvy entrepreneurs started their private mini-bus routes. Starting in the early 2000s, I also noticed van services going between Chinatown in Flushing and Manhattan. For $2.5, vans pick up passengers in Flushing and drop them off in Manhattan’s Chinatown (and return)– allegedly in 20 minutes! Apparently, they also pick up/go to Elmhurst, and parts of Brooklyn.
Inside of a Flushing-Chinatown van. Photo from Yelp.com
How did it all get started? One theory is that the routes serve residents to go to work (Manhattan’s Chinatown). Another reason, at least as it was documented for one route, was that during the renovation of the D train line in the early 2000s, there were no direct service from Brooklyn into Manhattan’s Chinatown. So van services saved local residents from the need to negotiate complicated subway-bus transfers and up to 1.5-hour rides. In an article published in The Villager in 2005, one bus service, Zhong Hua, was operating 20 vans. Since then, the company probably expanded. There are even reviews and photos of the (interior) of the van on Yelp.com.
This is not too surprising to those of us who have lived in developing countries. A “spontaneous order” often complements, amends, or supplants existing transportation service in big cities. Obvious examples can be found in Bangkok, other than Skytrain, taxis, and buses, there are tuk-tuks, songthaew, and motos (i.e. motorcycle taxis). Each of these modes serve different purposes and have different natural habitats.
Tuk-tuk in Bangkok. Authors photo
In Bangkok, tuk-tuk are ubiquitous in more touristy areas in the old city and most use it for short distance travel.
Songthaew in Bangkok. Authors photo
Songthaew literally means “two rows,” referring to the two rows of benches on the flatbed of a truck. They usually have established routes between major thoroughfares. In smaller cities, songthaew are the most convenient means of transportation.
Moto-taxi drivers waiting near an overpass. Authors photo
The latest newcomer to the scene are the “moto”, short for motorcycle taxi. First operating informally, they did not become licensed until some time in 2000s. Most moto gather near Skytrain stops and take passengers into long lanes (soi). Not only would they save you time from walking down a long lane, they are time savers because they often crisscross in the back lanes to avoid traffic jams.
These are just some of the lessons of the natural habitat of urban transportation. Questions remain as to the policy and economic environment that allow such spontaneity to meet local demands, and how development practitioners can draw useful tools from the inventiveness of urban entrepreneurs.
NOTES
[1] “Spontaneous order” refers to “the emergence of complex order as the unintended consequence of individual actions that have no such end in view.” The term supposedly originates in the theories of Friedrich August von Hayek, an economist and philosopher.
