Image: Ben Fractenberg

As New York City cabbies contend with a spike in gas prices and a resulting drop in business, the arrival of the World Cup could become another big bump in the road for those behind the wheel.

When Morocco and Brazil face off Saturday just across the Hudson River in the first of eight local matches in the soccer tournament that runs through July 19, yellow taxi drivers will have to work around FIFA’s projected influx of more than 1 million visitors to the city and roadblocks accompanying the global sports spectacle.

Those include the length of 42nd Street being largely restricted to buses and World Cup shuttles on match days, other road closures in Midtown, a series of gridlock-alert days and passengers who may opt to take other modes of transportation.

“I worry that business is going to be shut down, actually,” cabbie Joy Biswas, 37, told The City Reporter while taking a break at a relief stand on West 28th Street. “If someone inside the cab sees the traffic, they’ll get out and I’ll be stuck in it.”

The start of the action at the temporarily renamed NYNJ Stadium in the Meadowlands coincides with a nearly 20% drop in the number of monthly yellow trips from a year ago and a 40% spike in gas prices.

Source: The City Reporter

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Image: South China Morning Post

The Hong Kong government should expand its planned mandate for driver-monitoring systems on public buses to other modes of transport and upgrade road infrastructure as part of a multipronged strategy to reduce traffic accidents, industry leaders have said.

The remarks followed authorities revealing in the Legislative Council on Wednesday that they planned to leverage technology to boost road safety. The Transport Department is set to study the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of extending driver-monitoring systems to other types of vehicles.

“The mandatory installation of driver-monitoring systems could eventually be expanded to other private and commercial vehicles,” James Kong, chairman of the Institute of Advanced Motorists Hong Kong, said on Thursday.

He added that a phased approach should be adopted, with passenger-carrying commercial vehicles given priority. He also suggested that commercial vehicles, in particular, should be equipped with anti-rear-end collision systems to further reduce accidents.

All regulated taxi fleets have been equipped with driver-monitoring systems that issue alerts for lane drifting and tailgating, according to a Legco document on Wednesday. Authorities said they hoped these fleets would serve as a model for the rest of the transport industry. According to figures supplied by the Transport Department to legislators, the number of taxi drivers aged 70 or above involved in traffic accidents rose from 454 in 2022 to 626 in 2023, and further to 651 in 2024, an increase of 43.4 per cent.

Source: South China Morning Post

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Metro Vancouver Transit Union Provides Update on Possible Strike During FIFA World Cup

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Dubai's Autonomous Flying Taxi Has Finally Taken to the Sky

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Maharashtra Orders Action Against App-Based Taxi Aggregators over Forced Tipping and Fare Demands

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Image: UK Parliament

The Committee’s report into the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles that is published today also calls for a “clear plan” to reduce high levels of out-of-area working.

The report comes amid concern about fragmented regulation that varies from one area of the country to another. Currently there are more than 260 licensing authorities in England, each applying its own standards.

The Government announced in November 2025 that it would legislate to introduce national minimum standards for taxis and private hire vehicles, while some in the sector have called for tougher absolute national standards. Minimum standards would establish a floor for the conditions set by every licensing authority, while preserving the ability of individual authorities to vary conditions by setting higher requirements where local circumstances warranted it.

Absolute national standards, by contrast, would impose a single set of conditions to be applied consistently by every authority, with no scope to add to or depart from them. During its inquiry, the Committee heard arguments for both minimum standards and absolute national standards.

The Committee also heard fierce opposition to routine out-of-area working, which sees drivers obtaining their licence in one area and operating mainly in another. In its written evidence, the Blackpool Taxi Association referred to out-of-area working as "the root cause to all that's wrong".

Source: UK Parliament

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