London ‘should emulate New York’ to reduce congestion, says Karhoo

London could reduce congestion by emulating New York when it comes to open data, claims technology firm Karhoo.

New York has publicly-available anonymised TPEP/LPEP75 data which allowed Karhoo to assess the impact of taxi and private hire (PH) movements on traffic flow, congestion and pollution, the company says.

It adds that if Transport for London (TfL) were to follow suit, it “would be quick and relatively low-cost given that almost every licenced vehicle is connected to tracking systems already”.

TfL has thought about trimming the number of PH vehicles and taxis in the city to combat congestion. However, Karhoo – which runs an electronic %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external ride-hailing platform false http://www.itsinternational.com/categories/utc/news/karhoo-says-london-faces-decline-in-taxis-and-private-hire-vehicles/ false false%> – unsurprisingly suggests that “using taxis and PH to augment public transport would provide a much more substantive solution”.

In a submission to the Greater London Authority, it says: “The use of technology to provide data that could provide visualisation and other tools to identify the impact of taxi and PH on traffic flows, congestion and even pollution appears not really to have been considered yet we are in an age and in an industry where technology is ubiquitous.”