Credit cards catching on with cabbies, riders

A pilot program allowing taxicab passengers to pay fares with credit cards appears to be a hit with tourists, the Nevada Taxicab Authority board was told Tuesday.

But an expansion of the credit payment program will not be mandated, and will be up to individual taxicab companies to implement on their own if so desired.

To date, 28 cabs among the roughly 1,600 cabs in use valleywide can accept credit cards, with 11,000 credit transactions having taken place since last year, according to Stephen "Corky" Gowans, a vice president of TaxiPass, the New York City-based vendor supplying the credit card machines.

A-Cab Co. was the first to put credit cabs on the street in August. It was followed two months later by Desert Cab Co. Each firm has 14 credit cabs.

The cabs use a computer screen affixed to a seat headrest and facing a cab's rear seat, where tourists can swipe a credit card and punch in payment and tip amounts.

"The credit card never leaves the passenger's hand," Gowans said. "The only thing the driver does is hand the passenger a receipt."

Passengers are also charged a service fee of $2.50 for every $50 in fares. That money is used to underwrite the installation and maintenance of the credit card computer screens.

Gowans said credit cabs are reporting slightly higher collected fares than the average cab, and tips that are as much as 50 percent greater than the norm.

Richard Land, the Taxicab Authority's chief administrator, and Desert Cab owner George Balaban said they have not received any consumer complaints about the credit cabs.

A representative of A-Cab said his firm is getting a dozen or so requests per day from customers for credit card cabs.

Some drivers have been more reluctant than passengers to embrace the technology, Gowans said.

"There's drivers that are scared of it, absolutely, because it's new, it's change. When you show them how easy it is, they appreciate it."

Whether credit cabs will proliferate was unclear this week.

Officials from various Las Vegas Valley cab companies were publicly noncommittal on whether they'd install similar technology.

Likewise, Taxicab Authority officials said they would not order cabs to install credit card machines, with Tuesday's discussion simply intended to make industry officials aware of the pilot program and its progress.