T-Pep Analysis

Medallion taxicabs, with their ubiquitous yellow body paint, are the only vehicles allowed by law to pick up passengers by street hail in Manhattan. Since 2008, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commissions (“TLC”) has equipped the entire medallion fleet with the Taxi Passenger Enhancement Program (“T-PEP”) in. Medallion owners and drivers are strictly not allowed to tamper with nor remove the T-PEP system. Anyone found guilty of tampering with the permanent modifications or shutting off the system during business will be subject to fines and suspension. Drivers are, however, allowed to drive with a broken system for up to 48 hours as long as they have reported the problem and are awaiting repair, which must be completed within six hours.

Despite mandating the usage of T-PEP, the TLC is not responsible for the installation, operation and maintenance of the system. Instead, these functions are outsourced to external vendors who meet the TLC’s requirements. Since 2004, the TLC has selected Creative Mobile Technologies and Verifone as technological providers of T-PEP. In 2013, the TLC passed new rules with updated requirements for

The T-PEP data provides various stakeholders with a better understanding of the state of the medallion market and the variables that impact it. For example, Bagchi (2017) found a positive and statistically significant correlation between medallion prices and taxicab revenues (see Figure 6). Using T-PEP data of daily farebox revenues from January 2010 to November 2016, he was able to infer that the drop in revenues explain between 33.3% and 40% of the drop in medallion prices. There is, likewise, a positive and statistically significant relationship between medallion prices and the average number of trips. These findings emphasize the importance of tracking both farebox revenues and number of trips on a consistent basis (see Figure 3 and