Sharing Taxi

Curro Claret

This project is about rethinking public transport in occidental cities and particularly in optimising the use of taxis. The idea is that when someone would stop and go in an empty taxi, if he or she wishes, a display outside would show the direction where the taxi goes and the number of seats free inside, so anybody going in that direction could stop the taxi, go in, and eventually pay only his/her proportional part of the trip done.

This proposal was done for an exhibition called Terapies urbanas (urban therapies) in COAC (Col.legi Oficial d’Arquitectes de Catalunya) in 2003, in Barcelona, curate by Anna Mir. The curator selected 8 designers and asks them to design “something” for the city in relation to that axiom.

In occidental cities, one thing about transportation quite surprisingly, is to realize how vacant cars are going. Most of the time cars are moving with only the driver. The occupancy with taxis, very often is similar, with only one or two passengers inside. That obviously is not very ecological neither efficient.

The intention of the project is to make taxis to get more passengers, becoming then cheaper to use. Hopefully because more people would use taxis, a bit less private cars would be on the streets, so more fluid and fast they could go, optimizing also energy consumption. Probably taxi drivers then, could also earn more money.

Sharing because it’s convenience in many aspects; it’s more economical and sustainable; but also means more opportunities of socialising.

Something like that, for very different reasons, and in a very informal way, is happening in many cities in Asia, Africa or South America. Taxis there move with lots of passengers inside. Interesting to see how these countries develop many clever and sustainable solutions that could be applied in occidental cities.

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