Hailed: how the app replaced New York's yellow cab

Stage 1Measured · Act I

Every ride on record

Since 2009, New York City has published a record for every taxi ride, and later every ride ordered by phone. Each point of light here stands for a batch of them, dropped on the map where the trips began.

Measured. Each point stands for the same number of trips. Taxi points follow the street-level pattern of 2009 and 2010 pickups, the only years recorded by coordinates; all other points sit at a random spot inside their pickup zone.

One record is one trip: when and where it started, where it ended, what it cost.

For years almost every point is yellow: taxis, and nearly all of them in Manhattan.

From 2015 a second colour arrives. These are rides ordered by phone, and they land where the taxis did not.

This is the whole record. The number at the top is how many trips are in it: far too many to open in a spreadsheet, or to hold in the memory of most laptops.

Stage 2Measured · Act I

The yellow city

In 2009 a ride meant a yellow cab. The number of cabs was fixed by law, and they worked where the fares were densest.

Measured. Each point is a sample of real yellow taxi pickup locations from 2009 and 2010, lit around the hour of day it happened. The hourly counts are an average week of 2010.

These are real pickup locations from 2009 and 2010. Nobody drew the streets: the pickups did.

Now a clock runs through one week. Each point glows around the hour its trip began.

Evenings are the brightest hours. Before dawn the city is nearly dark, except at weekends.

From further away the business is plain: Manhattan and two airports. The shares are at the top.

Stage 3Measured · Act II

The apps arrive

Rides ordered by phone enter the records in 2015. Within two years they carry more passengers than the yellow cab.

Measured. Trips per month, counted from the trip records. Before February 2019 the records do not name the app companies, so app rides and traditional car services appear together as for-hire vehicles.

Trips per month. The yellow band is the taxi.

In 2015 a second band starts in front of it: for-hire vehicles, the old car services and the new apps together.

A marker drops in the month the for-hire total passes yellow for good.

From 2019 the records name the companies. The large band is Uber; Lyft sits on top of it.

The whole record. The taxi never came back to where it was.

Stage 4Measured · Act II

Where the growth was

The apps did not only take riders from taxis. Most of their trips begin in places the yellow cab rarely went.

Measured. The volume of each prism is that zone’s share of the service’s pickups, so both cities hold the same total volume and only the shape changes. Taxi pickups of 2009 and 2010 were recorded by coordinates and are assigned to the zone that contains them.

Each zone rises as a block. Its volume is its share of pickups.

The yellow taxi’s city is a single tower: Midtown Manhattan.

Now the apps’ city. The tower sinks and the rest of the map rises.

Both shapes hold the same volume. The share of pickups outside Manhattan, for each service, is at the top.

Stage 5Measured · Act II

Different trips

Where rides go changed too. Each arc joins a pickup zone to a drop-off zone; its brightness is how many trips made that journey.

Measured. Each arc joins the centres of a pickup zone and a drop-off zone; its brightness is the number of trips. Only the busiest journeys are drawn. Trips that start and end in the same zone show as a point.

The yellow taxi’s busiest journeys: short hops inside Manhattan, and the runs to the airports.

Almost all of them start and end in Manhattan.

The apps’ busiest journeys spread across every borough. Many never leave the neighbourhood they start in: those show as points.

The taxi served one island. The apps serve a city.

Stage 6Measured · Act III

March 2020

In March 2020 New York shut down, and the rides stopped almost overnight.

Measured. Each point stands for the same number of trips a day. The count of lit points follows the daily trip records, averaged over a week and compared with February 2020. Taxi points follow the 2009–2010 street pattern; app points sit at random inside their pickup zone.

One ordinary February day of rides: yellow for taxis, blue for rides ordered by phone.

In the middle of March the city closes. Within three weeks most of the points are gone.

The taxis fall furthest. Their lowest week is at the top.

The way back is slow, and uneven.

Today. Rides ordered by phone are close to where they were. Taxis are not.

Stage 7Measured · Act III

Where a fare goes

From 2019 the app records include what the passenger paid and what the driver was paid. From 2025 they include the Manhattan congestion toll.

Measured. Averages over every Uber, Lyft, Via and Juno trip of the month with plausible amounts. The records give the base fare and the driver’s pay; the difference is what the company kept before its own costs. It is not profit.

The average app trip, month by month, split into bands. The bottom band is the driver’s pay.

Above it, what the company kept from the fare. Then tips, tolls, taxes and fees.

Fares climb after 2020. The driver’s band and the company’s band both thicken.

A marker drops in the first month of the congestion toll.

The amounts for the newest month are at the top.

Stage 8Measured · Finale

Ask the data yourself

Everything so far was counted in advance. This part is live: your browser can load a week of real trips, millions of rows, and answer questions about them in a fraction of a second.

Measured. Real trip records for one month of Uber and Lyft rides, trimmed to nine columns. Until you press Run, the answers shown were computed in advance with the same queries.

Pick a question in the panel. Each zone rises to its answer. What you see first was computed in advance.

Press Run. Your browser downloads the week’s trip records and a small database engine, then works the answer out itself. Nothing is sent to a server.

The panel shows how many rows it scanned and how long that took. You can load the whole month too.