There was a time when accepting a credit card from the back seat of a taxi wasn't as simple as tapping a phone.
Years ago, Abraxi Taxi used a handheld credit-card machine that depended on the telephone system to process a payment. During major St. Augustine events, those systems could become overloaded.
One particularly busy concert weekend, we warned passengers to carry cash because we weren't confident our credit-card reader would be able to connect. We had experienced the same problem during the Fourth of July, when heavy demand overwhelmed communications and even some local ATMs ran out of cash.
That was the taxi business before today's mobile payment technology.
Eventually, services such as Square and smartphones made accepting electronic payments considerably easier. What once required a separate machine, a reliable connection and occasionally a little prayer can now happen in seconds.
Technology has changed transportation in plenty of other ways too. GPS replaced folded maps. Smartphones replaced dispatch radios for many tasks. Customers went from calling landlines to finding transportation online.
But one thing hasn't changed much: when thousands of people leave a St. Augustine concert at the same time, every driver in town gets busy.
Sometimes the old days weren't necessarily better. They just made for better stories.
Abraxi Taxiom: Always carry a little cash. Technology has a sense of humor.
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