Taxis of New York City

Boro taxi (left) and Yellow Medallion taxi

In New York City, taxicabs come in two varieties: yellow and green; they are widely recognizable symbols of the city. Taxis painted yellow (medallion taxis) are able to pick up passengers anywhere in the five boroughs. Those painted apple green (street hail livery vehicles, commonly known as "boro taxis"), which began to appear in August 2013, are allowed to pick up passengers in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens (excluding LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport), and Staten Island. Both types have the same fare structure. Taxicabs are operated by private companies and licensed by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). It also oversees over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles, including "black cars", commuter vans, and ambulettes.

Taxicab vehicles, each of which must have a medallion to operate, are driven an average of 180 miles (290 km) per shift. As of March 14, 2014, there were 51,398 individuals licensed to drive medallion taxicabs. There were 13,605 taxicab medallion licenses in existence. By July 2016, that number had dropped slightly to 13,587 medallions, or 18 lower than the 2014 total. Taxi patronage has declined since 2011 due to competition from ridesharing companies.

The medallion system was created in 1937 as a government imposed limitation on the supply of taxicabs, requiring that a medallion be purchased for the right to operate a taxi. Thereafter, New York did not sell any medallions until 1996, when it auctioned slightly more than 2,000. The lack of new medallions resulted in such a shortage that by 2014 they were selling for more than $1 million each, with about 14,000 medallions in existence. Since then, the increase in rideshare vehicles, which numbered about 63,000 in 2015 and 100,000 by August 2018, has drastically reduced the market price of medallions.[1][2][3][4]

As of September 2012, there are around 7,990 hybrid taxi vehicles, representing almost 59% of the taxis in service, as of 2023, there are over 12,000 taxis in New York City, the most in any city in North America. The Nissan NV200 won the city's bid to become the "Taxi of Tomorrow" to replace most of the city's taxi fleet, with its introduction scheduled for October 2012. Nevertheless, this decision has faced several lawsuits and criticism, with the NV200 subject to comparisons with more cost-effective and widely adopted models. As of March 14, 2014, 6,000 Street Hail Livery (SHL) permits have been issued, 20% of which must be used with wheelchair-accessible vehicles, with 4,478 Street Hail Livery vehicles already in use by that time.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Horwitz 2012 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Van Gelder 1996 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hu 2017b was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Fitzsimmons, Emma G. (August 8, 2018). "New York City Votes to Cap Uber and Lyft Vehicles in a Crackdown". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 11, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2018. number of for-hire vehicles in the city has surged to more than 100,000 vehicles, from about 63,000 in 2015, according to the city.