Share taxi

[4] The term "rank" denotes an area, specifically built for taxi operators by a municipality or city, where commuters may start and end their journey.

[citation needed] African minibuses are difficult to tax,[4] and may operate in a "regulatory vacuum" perhaps because their existence is not part of a government scheme, but is simply a market response to a growing demand for such services.

[4] Egyptian share cabs are generally known as micro-bus (mekrobass ميكروباص or mašrūʿ مشروع, "project"; plural mekrobassāt ميكروباصات or mašarīʿ مشاريع).

Like the Eastern European marshrutka, a typical micro-bus is a large van, most often a Toyota HiAce or its Jinbei equivalent, the Haise, and the latter is produced by the Bavarian Auto Manufacturing Group in 6th of October City in Egypt.

They are preferred by the majority of the populace over public buses and more traditional taxicabs because they are generally cheap, operate on diverse routes, and are available in abundance.

Post-1987, the industry was rapidly deregulated, leading to an influx of new minibus taxi operators, keen to make money off the high demand for this service.

Because the industry was largely unregulated and the official regulating bodies corrupt,[citation needed] these associations soon engaged in anti-competitive price fixing and exhibited gangster tactics – including the hiring of hit-men and all-out gang warfare.

[4] They are usually run by both a driver and a bus conductor called a mpigadebe, literally meaning "a person who hits a debe" (a 4-gallon tin container used for transporting gasoline or water).

The name is in reference to the fact that conductors often hit the roof and side of the van to attract customers and to notify the driver when to leave the station.

Special features include its high speeds (up to 110 km/h on some routes; which is illegal when exceeding the 80 km/h limit) and permission for the driver to end the journey prematurely, even with passengers on board.

Both types have a cream-coloured body, the distinguishing feature being the colour of the external roof, and the type of service that the colour denotes: green is like regular transit bus with fixed number, route, schedule and fare (but generally not fixed stops); red is a shared taxi, operating on semi-fixed route unregulated, with the driver waiting for enough passengers to justify leaving, as his income depends on the revenue.

Monit sherut is one of the only forms of transit accessible to many Israelis during Shabbat, as most public transportation in the country closes down between sunset on Friday and nightfall on Saturday.

[citation needed] The most popular means of public transportation in the Philippines as of 2007,[46] jeepneys were originally made out of US military jeeps left over from World War II[47] and are known for their color and flamboyant decoration.

[46] The jeepneys are built by local automobile repair shops from a combination of prefabricated elements (from a handful of Filipino manufacturers) and improvisation and in most cases equipped with "surplus" or used Japanese SUV or light truck engines, drive train, suspension and steering components (from recycled vehicles in Japan).

In Turkey and Northern Cyprus, dolmuşlar (singular dolmuş, pronounced "dolmush") are share taxis that run on set routes within and between cities.

The word derives from Turkish for "full" or "stuffed", as these share taxis depart from the terminal only when a sufficient number of passengers have boarded.

Examples of van models include Peugeot Boxer, Citroën Jumper, Ford Transit, Iveco Daily and Renault Master.

In Romania, microbuze or maxi-taxi supplied the need of affordable public transportation in smaller towns when some local administrations abolished the expensive community-owned systems of buses.

Major providers of share taxis in Switzerland are Telebus Kriens LU, Taxito, myBuxi, Kollibri by Swiss Postal Bus, and Pikmi by VBZ Verkehrsbetriebe Zurich ZH.

[62] Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against traveling in the Dominican Republic carros públicos because doing so makes passengers targets for robbery, and because the taxis are known to, "disregard traffic laws, often resulting in serious accidents involving injuries and sometimes death.

[64] They follow fixed routes; won't leave until filled with passengers; and many feature wild colors, portraits of famous people, and intricate, hand-cut wooden window covers.

In New York City, dollar vans serve major areas that lack adequate subway service in transit deserts.

[81] Dollar vans and other jitneys mainly serve low-income, immigrant communities in transit deserts, which lack sufficient bus and subway service.

[83] Denser urban areas of northern New Jersey, such as Hudson, Bergen and Passaic County, are also served by dollar vans,[82][84][85] which are commonly known as jitneys, and most of which are run by Spanish Transportation and Community Line, Inc. Nungessers, along the Anderson Avenue-Bergenline Avenue transit corridor is a major origination/termination point, as are 42nd Street in Manhattan, Newport Mall and Five Corners in Jersey City, and GWB Plaza in Fort Lee.

[82] Over the course of the 2000s, surprise inspections in Hudson County, New Jersey have been imposed on jitney operators, whose lack of regulation, licensing or regular scheduling has been cited as the cause for numerous fines.

A series of such inspections of the vans on Bergenline Avenue in June 2010 resulted in 285 citation violations, including problems involving brake lights, bald tires, steering wheels, suspensions, exhaust pipes, and emergency doors welded shut.

Drivers of these vans have also developed a reputation for ignoring traffic laws in the course of competing for fares, picking up and dropping off passengers at random locations, and driving recklessly.

[86] On July 30, 2013, an accident occurred at 56th Street and Boulevard East in West New York, New Jersey, in which Angelie Paredes, an 8-month-old North Bergen resident, was killed in her stroller when a full-sized[88] jitney bus belonging to the New York-based Sphinx company toppled a light pole.

[88] At an August 6 press conference, legislators including U.S. Representative Albio Sires, New Jersey State Senator Nicholas Sacco, State Assembly members Vincent Prieto, Charles Mainor and Angelica Jimenez, West New York Mayor Felix Roque, Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner, Guttenberg Mayor Gerald Drasheff, Freeholder Junior Maldonado and Hudson County Sheriff Frank Schillari, noted that problems with jitneys existed since the 1980s, and called for stricter regulations for drivers and bus companies.

This included increased monitoring and enforcement, and heightened participation by the public in identifying poor drivers,[91] as jitneys had been exempt from regulations imposed on buses and other forms of transportation.