While it would be prohibitively difficult to investigate every possible way fares would have been calculated before modern taximeters across the world, we can get a glimpse into how the industry ensured that the appropriate fares were collected by looking at how hack fares were calculated in New York City.

Hack drivers -- the precursors to modern taxi cabs -- were a ubiquitous staple in 19th Century New York City. Drivers were stringently regulated; they were required to be municipally licensed, unlike their teamster colleagues who only moved freight within the urban environment. Rates for hacks were set by city ordinance and strictly enforced. 13 different rates that varied based on time, distance, or number of passengers were approved by New York City’s mayor in 1853. Not only were those rates broadcast in the *New York Times,* hacks were required to publicly post them if they wanted to pick up passengers from the street.

Although the modern taximeter was not employed by drivers in New York until 1907, odometers fitted to the wheels of carriages had already been in use across the nation to calculate the distance that a carriage traveled. However, a plurality of New York's fares in 1853 were based off of landmarks, not mile-by-mile distances. Distance was strictly used to calculate fares for short distances. A trip that was up to a mile in length cost 50 cents for a single passenger. A trip between one and two miles in length cost 75 cents for a single passenger. But six of the listed fares were determined by physical locations. A passenger paid a dollar to get to the Almshouse, 2.50 dollars to get to 86th Street, and 5.00 dollars to get to Harlem. Another two fares were determined by the length of time the hack was engaged. One could hire a hack for a dollar an hour -- with unlimited stops too -- or one could pay five dollars for the privilege of hiring the hack for the entire day.

Much like taxi cabs today, hacks served a middle class that had a discretionary income, but that could not afford to keep their own teams in the city. The fares for hacks were too high to make them a reliable source of daily transportation for the working man, who relied on horse drawn mass transit that ultimately evolved into the modern bus and the modern streetcar.

*Sources*

Harbster, Jennifer. “Counting the Miles: Thomas Jefferson’s Quest for an Odometer.” https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2015/08/counting-the-miles-thomas-jeffersons-quest-for-an-odometer/

McShane, Clay, and Joel A. Tarr. *The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century*

“Rates of Fare for Hackney Coaches and Carriages.” *New York Times.* July 26, 1865.

Vidich, Charles. *The New York Cab Driver and His Fare*