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[Discussion] Taxi jobs and how they are used.


Lilypad

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I wanted to gain some feedback and ideas from players following a conversation I had with someone recently regarding the Taxi job. I would like to hear from those who are employed as a Taxi driver and those who look to call for Taxis, or have had experiences with them.

 

This is a space for anyone to share their views, ideas, and experiences. Please remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion here.

 

Taxi fare rates

 

It was brought to light recently that the taxi role where people are able to set their fare to a high rate which can bring impact to players simply needing to get from A to B. When calling for a taxi you do not know who you will be getting or what their rate will be. Someone from a lower income is able to call for a taxi however could be getting a taxi with a fare out of their budget. I don't believe that people take into consideration that anyone could be calling for a taxi and there should be some thought put into what the fare is. This should not be something to discourage drives nor put them out of pocket but it should be something fair to the community as well as the driver.

 

Interestingly, I have been on taxi journeys of the same route where there was approximately a $600 difference in the final journey cost. For players who do roleplay a lower income and no vehicle it seems it could be an off-put.

 

What would make this more fair?

 

The use of /fixveh

 

I believe this is also very damaging to those who use the taxi job as a source of income. Let's admit it that everyone and their nan will use /fixveh in a heartbeat if they need their car and they have been left elsewhere at a far distance. We don't have this advantage in the real world however we do have it here and it is very overused. It could be something as simple as Friend A takes Friend B shopping but has an emergency and Friend B gets left behind. Instead of calling another friend or a taxi they use /fixveh to find their own way home.

It is overused and I can understand the side where it could be damaging than creating roleplay for drivers and for the person themselves to get a taxi instead.

 

Realism

 

Being from the UK I live in an area where everything is on your doorstep or simply a bus ride away. Often we go shopping and take more than we anticipate and can't carry everything or take the bus home, which is then when a taxi is used instead. I do not see why this sort of concept could not be the case within GTA:W as well, for those without vehicles or going out with friends they could use the taxi service to get home.

 

Furthermore, when players go out to clubs at night or to bars and the like they hold no concept over what they are drinking unless an effect is pulled upon their screen, and even then they can use a command to stop that so that it does not damage their driving skills. I would not suggest getting rid of the command to stop this effect as I know it can mess with peoples sight and bring nausea over a length of time. However, people do not take into consideration the idea of DUI and the impact it could have; very rarely do people roleplay the impact of drinking and driving when they should be taking a taxi home. 

 

I personally have had both positive and negative experiences with drivers over my two years on this server however I cannot speak for everynoe.

 

My main questions here are:

 

- Do you think the taxi job could be changed in such a way to make it more appealing to players as customers?

- Should there a set fare across the board?

- Should you be able to choose whether you get a yellow taxi cab at a certain fare or a private owned vehicle which might hold a higher fare?

 

All opinions are welcome and I politely ask you to be polite to each other in thoughts, ideas and opinions.

 

Thank you in advance.

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Just my 2cents. 

 

I think just removing /fixveh would help a lot, it's abused to high heaven. Stranded? /fixveh, will admins bother? Nope, never seen anyone banned for fixveh abuse in a really long time. 

 

The job needs modernisation, Ubers are extremely popular across the world, private hire should be considered but you pay a service fee. 

 

My example

Taxi Companies are entirely scripted companies

John owns Los Santos Taxis and owns a fleet of Taxis. 

John hires Jason to work for him and Jason uses the Taxi

Jason picks up Steven as a fare and takes him to somewhere, Steven pays Jason for ride. Jason gets paid a percentage of the /taxipay, the rest goes back to Los Santos Taxi. 

 

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1 hour ago, Lilypad said:

I wanted to gain some feedback and ideas from players following a conversation I had with someone recently regarding the Taxi job. I would like to hear from those who are employed as a Taxi driver and those who look to call for Taxis, or have had experiences with them.

 

This is a space for anyone to share their views, ideas, and experiences. Please remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion here.

 

Taxi fare rates

 

It was brought to light recently that the taxi role where people are able to set their fare to a high rate which can bring impact to players simply needing to get from A to B. When calling for a taxi you do not know who you will be getting or what their rate will be. Someone from a lower income is able to call for a taxi however could be getting a taxi with a fare out of their budget. I don't believe that people take into consideration that anyone could be calling for a taxi and there should be some thought put into what the fare is. This should not be something to discourage drives nor put them out of pocket but it should be something fair to the community as well as the driver.

 

Interestingly, I have been on taxi journeys of the same route where there was approximately a $600 difference in the final journey cost. For players who do roleplay a lower income and no vehicle it seems it could be an off-put.

 

What would make this more fair?

 

The use of /fixveh

 

I believe this is also very damaging to those who use the taxi job as a source of income. Let's admit it that everyone and their nan will use /fixveh in a heartbeat if they need their car and they have been left elsewhere at a far distance. We don't have this advantage in the real world however we do have it here and it is very overused. It could be something as simple as Friend A takes Friend B shopping but has an emergency and Friend B gets left behind. Instead of calling another friend or a taxi they use /fixveh to find their own way home.

It is overused and I can understand the side where it could be damaging than creating roleplay for drivers and for the person themselves to get a taxi instead.

 

Realism

 

Being from the UK I live in an area where everything is on your doorstep or simply a bus ride away. Often we go shopping and take more than we anticipate and can't carry everything or take the bus home, which is then when a taxi is used instead. I do not see why this sort of concept could not be the case within GTA:W as well, for those without vehicles or going out with friends they could use the taxi service to get home.

 

Furthermore, when players go out to clubs at night or to bars and the like they hold no concept over what they are drinking unless an effect is pulled upon their screen, and even then they can use a command to stop that so that it does not damage their driving skills. I would not suggest getting rid of the command to stop this effect as I know it can mess with peoples sight and bring nausea over a length of time. However, people do not take into consideration the idea of DUI and the impact it could have; very rarely do people roleplay the impact of drinking and driving when they should be taking a taxi home. 

 

I personally have had both positive and negative experiences with drivers over my two years on this server however I cannot speak for everynoe.

 

My main questions here are:

 

- Do you think the taxi job could be changed in such a way to make it more appealing to players as customers?

- Should there a set fare across the board?

- Should you be able to choose whether you get a yellow taxi cab at a certain fare or a private owned vehicle which might hold a higher fare?

 

All opinions are welcome and I politely ask you to be polite to each other in thoughts, ideas and opinions.

 

Thank you in advance.

Personally I think the server is holding onto a relic of the past in the current taxi system. We shouldn’t be limiting this system to just the age-old yellow cabs. It’s 2022.
 

First thing that should be done is to allow transportation businesses (registered businesses with approval from PM) to utilize different cars for their business purposes with /startshift payment support for their drivers. I’m not talking about anyone with a regular car becoming an Uber driver with their own car. I’m talking about employees hired at a transportation company utilizing the company’s cars and receiving the same hourly payment as a yellow cab taxi driver who use /startshift and receive an hourly subsidy.
 

This way there’s some semblance of managing oversight from the owner and PM and companies don’t go broke paying their drivers after sharing a $100 cab fare. Let’s be honest, taxi companies without the /startshift support wouldn’t be very appealing to a business owner. This would allow companies to branch off into new avenues of the transportation business and offer rates that create an atmosphere of businesses competing with one another. I think we’ve limited this area of RP for too long. 
 

Second is a mentality issue along with how easy it is to get a car early on. You can buy 3 starters from the airport for less than $500. You get $5,000 an hour up to $200,000. Outside of the minority willingly choosing to use a transportation service, you’re not going to have a lot of people using a ride share or taxi service. The mentality you mentioned with regards to drinking and driving is an RP quality issue. Last time I saw this discussion on discord, it boiled down to cops not wanting to stand around and do checkpoints very often. We see them very rarely and thus the consequence for drinking and driving is practically non-existent. 
 

Have to fix the underlying issue and add some harsher consequences to driving under the influence from an IC standpoint and/or fix the portrayal issue from an OOC standpoint. It’s just one of those things with the question of which comes first? The chicken or the egg? 
 

 

Edited by Brofessor
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50 minutes ago, sCrax said:

I honestly think /fixveh is the main reason why people don't call taxis. Why would they if they can just spawn their car anywhere with no repercussions. 

 

Pretty much this. Its used as a teleport for their vehicle. This abuse is massive and everyone knows it. Instead, it should be used to flip vehicles that are bugged or spawned under another vehicle. So fixveh should only work if your vehicle is within visual range. Otherwise, use /report.

Edited by mj2002
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I will on most occasions utilise /taxi if I am heading to a bar/club. 

 

I agree that /fixveh could be nurfed, maybe if you are a significant distance from the location of your vehicle, then you are not allowed to use the command at all

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Hi, Dan from Transport on Demand here 🙂 

 

The /fixveh abuse that people have noted is obviously a major concern - revisions to this both in frequency and range would be beneficial, I’ve seen countless people fixveh their shopping list just to show off before - this really shouldn’t be possible. 
 

Another that’s overlooked is the use of /changechar to respawn elsewhere on the map. Currently players are able to /changechar and respawn at any location they have keys, plus the airport - with a few friends in the right places, this essentially enables teleporting to within a short walk of anywhere you like on the map. This should be limited to one residence and only once every few hours, if at all after “logging in” for the day. 
 

IC enforcement on drunk driving/unlicensed driving/etc. would go some way to encouraging taxis, but nowhere near as much as removing the ooc means to teleport yourself and your vehicles. There’s no need for this without admin intervention.

 

I do forget about things like rental/starter cars but these are unnecessary and unrealistic for the most part too - starter cash enables people to buy whatever they like after a few hours play and in that time they could be using company vehicles or taxis… 


Fares - as a company, we do standard pricing. Typically it’s $350 for a city trip, with prices increasing as distances increase, with our highest fare being $900 for the airport to paleto. We’re currently having some good RP from a rival company with insanely high prices - This could be better moderated IC, but I’m also happy to see and discuss OOC caps on prices as long as they don’t restrict people too much. I expect ours will be much lower than what’s permitted anyway! 
I would also note I’ve discussed with private drivers who charge high before and their main reason for doing so is they have had no customers and don’t want to pass up an opportunity to make a good fare for the first time in two hours - if they were having constant $350 fares, this would add up very quickly.
 

As a taxi business, one thing that would really help us is a business landline. Currently there’s no real number for Transport on Demand except my personal four digit - this means I either have to be online 24 hours a day or there are times where regular clients can’t reach us 🤷‍♂️

 

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2 hours ago, Lilypad said:

Being from the UK

 

That's not how it works in America. I've heard of people taking taxis to the airport and back or to get home when they're drunk, but this was before Uber. Everyone in America has at least one car unless you're poor or don't have a license. 

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Just now, im not a hero said:

 

That's not how it works in America. I've heard of people taking taxis to the airport and back or to get home when they're drunk, but this was before Uber. Everyone in America has at least one car unless you're poor or don't have a license. 

 

Only if you live in the suburbs or a rural area. In Urban centers IE Los Santos it's extremely common for people to use dedicated public transport or simply walk. That being said I don't believe we have a functioning subway and the Bus system is extremely spotty due to reasons I'm not privy too.

 

As for how to improve taxis, other than the aformentioned OOC fixes, stricter IC enforcement of traffic laws is also a big help. My character regularly speeds up and down Great Ocean, La Puetra and Senora (Going upwards of 120MPH) and he's only been pulled over by Law Enforcement once out there. Same goes for high commercial traffic areas IE Port Terminal or Vinewood.

 

At the end of the day if you want people to use taxies, you need to give them a reason to use taxis.

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