Security Cameras Could Be Useful For Taxis

Nov 18, 2008 12:22 PM

At the dispatch center for TheCAB taxi company, company watchmen know where their employees are at all times with the trigger of a button. Through a GPS system, watchman George Guibalt, chief dispatcher, can pinpoint an emergency within a block if the driver’s GPS is on.

GPS went into TheCAB's cars in 2004. In 2006, after several violent crimes against cabbies, the company asked drivers to consider buying taxi cameras. Only a few of them have because of cost.

If a video surveillance system was in TheCAB’s taxis, evidence for police of crime can be caught frame by frame.

Over 600 hundred drivers contract with TheCAB. Three hundred are on the road at any given time, and video surveillance to help keep them safe is the next wave of technology the cabs are told to implement all around the country.

Being able to make out images, including small letters on shirts, and details such as whether they're wearing glasses, or have a mustache or tattoos, can save the city of the crime time, money and lives.

It is said a set up for a cab surveillance system would run the company about $2,700. A scaled down version with a single camera runs about $1,500.

TheCAB, one of several taxi cab companies concerned with security, will again look at taxicams to protect drivers.

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