What if you don't want to pay for that specific service? I got a taxi home (not in London) last week and the taxi driver used his sat nav to route me home. It didn't bother me in the slightest.

Pretty much all I ask for in a taxi is get me from where I am to where I want to go, as quickly, cheaply and safely as possible. I'm not against people being licenced (that comes into the "safely" bit of my requirements), but if they can achieve the "quickly" bit just as easily with a free app on their smartphone as they could with 3 years worth of studying, allowing them to provide the service more cheaply, then I'm all for it.

London doesn't have a grid structure. When there's a closure or delay on one route, it's not as simple as choosing the next road over. GPSes vary in their quality for routing diversions, but in a maze of one-way streets, turning restrictions and temporary / permanent rerouting in effect, a human is always going to be better. GPS maps are often out of date as London is constantly changing with rat-runs being closed down and new railway lines being built.

And "The Knowledge" doesn't provide the ability for taxi drivers to psychopathically become aware of delays in traffic on a given road. I've never noticed any particular difference in the amount of time I've been stuck in traffic when travelling in black cabs or in taxis with drivers using a GPS.

> What if you don't want to pay for that specific service?

Don't use it. Call a minicab instead.

Which usually involves several minutes of waiting, as opposed to simply flagging one down as it's passing, which you're allowed to do with a black cab.

As a singular anecdotal counterpoint, I've yet to get in a cab and say e.g. "Greenwich" or "Blackheath" and have those three points happen. I've had worse though - I've got a cab from Lewisham Station to Maze Hill and had to direct them most of the way ("left, right up the hill, turn right, turn left, stop").

Meh. My last black cab experience was supposed to take me from Paddington Station to the Marriott Marble Arch. The cab dropped me at Marriott Park Lane and sped off before I realized he had left me at the wrong hotel.

I'm convinced he did this on purpose. It was rush hour, there was a bomb scare nearby, and I assume he didn't want to sit in traffic. Of course, if he had just explained that to me, I would have been happy to walk the remaining few blocks. Instead, I was just left at the wrong location and a bit confused.

So much for "The Knowledge".

>You are getting a very specific service

So are you in favor of that very specific service being a monopoly or not?

There's no monopoly, there's merely a minimum standard defined by law. You're free to complete The Knowledge to become a cabbie, or a medical degree to become a doctor.

And that is great, but some price-conscious customers might be ok with driver entering location into gps and spending extra 15 minutes in traffic in exchange for lower price. Just give a chose to customers, not outright ban uber.