The history of taxis: from horse-drawn carriages to app-booked taxis

The history of taxis begins in the seventeenth century, when London and Paris started offering horse-drawn hire carriages with a coachman: the English hackney carriages and the French fiacres. In the nineteenth century more nimble carriages appeared, such as the cabriolet and the hansom cab, and at the end of that century came the two inventions that define the modern taxi: the taximeter, developed in Germany by Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891, and the motor hire car with a taximeter, built by Daimler in 1897. During the twentieth century the motor taxi spread to every big city, radio changed the way people ordered one and, in the twenty-first century, apps and electric cars have done the same.

In the seventeenth century, Europe's great capitals had a problem that sounds familiar: lots of people, crowded streets and few ways of getting around. In London the hire carriages known as hackney carriages became popular, and the authorities were quick to limit their number and require licences. In Paris, the hire carriage service came to be called the fiacre, a name that spread across much of Europe.

They were expensive services, aimed at merchants, professionals and the well-off, but they already had the essential elements of the taxi: a vehicle available to anyone who paid, a professional driver and public regulation.

For two centuries, the great weak point of hire carriages was the price: it was negotiated, or fares were applied that were hard to check, and disputes were constant. The taximeter changed everything. By measuring the distance travelled and the waiting time, it allowed passenger and driver to accept the same amount without arguing.

The device was so successful that it ended up giving its name to the vehicle. We tell the story step by step in the origin of the word taxi.

The first motor hire cars were a curiosity at the end of the nineteenth century, but within a few decades they had pushed out the horses. There were experiments with electric taxis in London and New York, although it was the petrol engine that won out thanks to its range and ease of refuelling. By the first decade of the twentieth century, motor taxis with taximeters were already on the streets of New York and the main European capitals, including Madrid.

Each city developed its own style: cars designed specifically for the service, compulsory colours, rules on seats and luggage. We look at the evolution of the vehicle, from the cabriolet to the electric car, in the taxi from its beginnings to the present day. And we gather some curious episodes from that expansion, such as the taxis that took soldiers to the front in the First World War, in taxis and their anecdotes.

In the middle of the twentieth century, radio made it possible for a switchboard to send the nearest free taxi to the customer. This was the birth of the radio taxi, which in many cities coexisted for decades with the rank and the raised hand. Then came GPS, card readers and, in the twenty-first century, mobile apps, with which you order, track and pay for a taxi from your phone.

At the same time, the fuel changed: from diesel, dominant in Europe for decades, to the hybrids and electric cars that are now common in many fleets.

Madrid followed a similar path, with its own names: simones, manuelas, coches de punto and autotaxis. If you want to learn about that local version, start with the history of the taxi in Madrid.

Today, in the capital, you can book a taxi to the airport with a fixed fare: €33 from inside the M-30, with the other areas on our fares to Barajas page.