Across the country, you will encounter different kinds of cab companies. Because of this, some people may get confused when visiting or moving to a different state. If you’re hoping to get into the business, or would like to find out more about the usual Universal Taxi cabbies driving you around, it’s important to understand how different each cab company is from the others.

Medallions

In a lot of major cities, there is a limit placed on the number of taxis allowed in the streets. After all, if you allow every cabbie wannabe to start picking up passengers, then you’ll probably have more traffic than the city streets can handle, not to mention an influx of untrustworthy drivers taking people from point A to point B. Thus the medallion system.

Buying medallions are required if you want to drive people around. Some cities that use medallions are New York and Boston. These days however, because of the threat of competition from ridesharing services, the prices of medallions have been trending down.

So if you chance upon a cabbie who does not have a medallion, it’s possible that his service is illegal.

Ownership

Cab companies may also be independently-owned, while others are controlled by huge companies. Independent cabs usually has only one driver with a single unit. As far as huge companies are concerned however, they would often have over a hundred cabs under their name.

Of course, the cab drivers aren’t really considered as employees of these companies. More often than not, these cabbies are still independent drivers who are merely leasing the taxi by the hour.

Chicago Cabs

In Chicago, cabbies also buy medallions to be able to drive people around in the taxis they either own or lease. There are quite a number of cabs around, but it can get pretty tough to hail a cab especially during the rush hour when there are ten other people trying to wave to the same cab you saw. It’s great that cab companies like Universal Taxi have their own mobile app, which allows the user to just stay put, book a cab, and wait for it to pick them up.

Some cabs have medallions, while some risk the chance of driving around without the proper permission from the government. Some own the taxi they drive around, while others just lease the unit for now and hope that later on they’ll be able to save up for their own. Some cab companies just let their drivers roam around and pick up passengers at random, while some offer the convenience of having the taxi pick the passenger up at a specific location with just a few taps on a mobile gadget. Truly, the cab industry has grown so much that you’ll encounter so many different kinds of cabbies and cab companies in a single day. If one thing’s for sure though, it’s the fact that cabs still offer the most convenient way of moving from one point in the city to another.