The GreenTaxi Mission
GreenTaxi exist to excite taxi drivers and taxi companies about reducing emissions and fuel consumption.
This will be done by teaching taxi drivers how to drive for better gas mileage and by convincing taxi companies to invest in hybrid cars.
The long term goal of GreenTaxi is to become certified as a nonprofit organization that would be able to accept donations and distribute them to taxi companies as grants towards covering the extra cost of buying and maintaining hybrid or other energy efficient vehicles and operating them as a taxis.
The Problems
Air pollution is an increasing problem in most major metropolitan cities. Since taxis spend most of their time within the city limits and have their engines running all day, these vehicles contribute significantly to the pollution of city air. Currently most taxis are gas guzzlers with outdated emissions systems.
Rising gas prices has lead to a rise in the cost of being in the transportation business. As gas is becoming more expensive taxi drivers are taking less money home or are forced to increase the price charged to the customer. This is leadig to a decrease in the profitability of running a taxi business.
As domestic reserves of oil are being depleted and world demand is rising the US has experienced an increased dependence on foreign oil. This means that a good part of the profits from sales of gasoline is leaving the US and ends in the pockets of governments in the oil producing countries around the world.
A switch to use hybrid cars as taxis (such as the Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid or Prius) would decrease both the gas consumption and the pollution from these taxicabs, leading to better air quality and less dependence on foreign oil.
A change to hybrid technology will have the following benefits for the City, the customers and the drivers:
- Lower fuel consumption.
- Lower emissions.
- Less CO2 production - less contribution to global warming.
- Less dependence on foreign oil.
- Less sensitive to changes in gas prices.
- New and clean vehicles.
- Good publicity.
- Corporate responsibility.
Back to School
Besides upgrading the taxi fleet, it is also possible to decrease fuel consumption of existing vehicles by adopting sensible driving techniques. GreenTaxi has a list of suggestions for how to improve gas mileage (also available in our easily printable brochure).
Possible Sources of Funding
In the current model used by most taxi companies, the gas expenses are the responsibility of the driver, while the taxi company is responsible for buying an maintaining the car. This means that the taxi company does not have any incentive for buying a hybrid car since gas savings are not passed on.
However, here we propose some ways for the taxi company to recoup some of cost of buying a hybrid car:
- Federal tax incentives for buying hybrid vehicles
- Have the drivers pass on some of the savings to the company
- Better prices compared to competitors should yield more business
- Lower maintenance costs
- Corporate sponsorships
- Grants from local city officials
- EPA grants
- In a CO2 economy CO2 credits can be traded.
Brochure
Please download and print our brochure - standard resolution (84 kb) or high resolution (375 kb). To print double sided please print page 1 then turn the page around and put it back in the printer and then print page 2. (Adobe acrobat reader is required to view the file)
Survey
Please let us know how we are doing and what we can do to get better.