Thanks to Ben Wellington, the man behind I Quant NY, I discovered that Chris Whong posted a year’s worth of NYC taxi fare data, which he obtained from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commision by FOIA request. What follows is an analysis of 578,233 rides, or about 1/300th of the roughly 175 million yellow taxi rides taken in 2013.





Tipping Behavior

45% of taxi rides were paid for with cash. Of these 264,154 transactions, only 29 (0.00931%) included a tip. As a result, the following graphs depict only credit card transactions, totaling 311,623 rides.

The average tip was $2.53 with a standard deviation of $2.43. Excluding riders who did not tip at all, the average tip was $2.61 with a standard deviation of $2.43. As a fraction of the total fare, the average tip was 18.9% for all rides, and 19.5% for all rides that included a tip. 3.16% of riders did not tip at all. 1.75% of riders tip more than 30% and 0.21% tip more than 50%.

Unsurprisingly, there are some extreme data points in the raw data. In this sample of 1/300th of the records, there were about 20 negative fares and tips that (supposedly) went as high as 4067%.

As NYC residents know, the in-cab credit card interface offers three default tip levels: 20%, 25%, and 30%, once described as the “The $144,146,165 Button.” 44% of riders defaulted to the 20% button, 10% to the 25% button, and 4% to the 30% button.

Tipping Behavior by Time of Day

Riders apparently feel most generous shortly before lunch and through the end of the work day. That, or - more likely - employers are picking up tab, resulting in higher average tips during the day.

Here is how rides are concentrated across an average day, an average weekday (defined as 6 PM Sunday to 6 PM Friday), and an average weekend (6 PM Friday to 6 PM Sunday). One hour that stands out is 4-5 PM, which - as any resident will tell you - is when New York cab drivers change shifts, leading to fewer available cabs.

Tipping Behavior by Day of Week

There is also a relationship between day of week and tipping behavior: Monday (the slowest taxi day of the week) is the best day for tips, and Friday (the busiest day) is the worst.

Again, my theory is that this has more to do with the type of trip (professional vs. personal) than anything else. Both Sunday and Monday are lower-volume days, but the tipping behavior is different.

Tipping Behavior by Month

There also appears to be a relationship between time of year and tipping behavior. December is the most generous month for tips:

Distribution of Total Fares

The average taxi fare in 2013 was $14.80, with a standard deviation of $12.13. About 30% of all taxi fares are less than $10, and nearly 80% are less than $20. 3.79% of fares were greater than $50 and 0.15% were greater than $100. The most expensive trip recorded in my sample was a whopping $544, paid in cash. Here’s what the distribution of total fares, cash included, looks like:

Zoomed in a bit:

And the distribution of total fares:

That’s a wrap for me. But if you’re hungry for more taxi data visualization, you can check out Chris Whong’s NYC Taxis: A Day in the Life or I Quant NY’s analysis of Green Taxi tipping behavior by neighborhood (which is evidently the kickoff to a series of posts.)

Happy New Year to all of you! And remember to tip your cab driver an extra 1.25% tonight.