Inside a London cab-driver's brain

FMRI scans have revealed the amazing workings of London's Black Cab drivers, who train for a decade to acquire "The Knowledge," an encylopedic ability to navigate London's streets:

The hippocampus was only active when the taxi drivers initially planned their route, or if they had to completely change their destination during the course of the journey.

The scientists saw activity in a different brain region when the drivers came across an unexpected situation - for example, a blocked-off junction.

Another part of the brain helped taxi drivers to track how close they were to the endpoint of their journey; like a metal detector, its activity increased when they were closer to their goal.

Changes also occurred in brain regions that are important in social behaviour.

Taxi driving is not just about navigation: "Drivers do obsess occasionally about what their customers are thinking," said Dr Spiers.

Taxi drivers 'have brain sat-nav' (Thanks, Ben!)

• [Uncle_Max]

  @12: “Anyway – all this business about The Knowledge, with cabbies having to be part of some secret brotherhood, is dead in the water. SAT NAV. Not a day too soon.”

  Soon, but not quite yet. I haven’t tried the newest most top-of-the-line GPS’s, but the other’s I’ve seen do a pretty terrible job of taking into account traffic at different times of the day, as well as speed. They tend to just pick the shortest/easiest route, but it’s not necessarily the fastest.

  However, I’m pretty sure that within a few years they’ll be vastly improved, at which point any random jackass can become a cabbie, without need for any special route memorization. Eventually we shall be ferried around by robots, and that will be a glorious day.

• [ecobore]

  I lived in London most of my life and have now thankfully escaped it. But last time I was there a ride from Holloway into the City cost £30 because of traffic – ridiculous! I have also tested routes using my TomTom and my somewhat extensive knowledge of London and it’s traffic. Could do as well as any taxi driver now. The knowledge is a dead duck guys. Sorry! On the other hand next time I go to NYC I am taking the satnav with me! The cabbies there are AWFUL!

• [Anonymous]

  I lived in London for four years, working as an investment banker, and, frankly, I was completely unimpressed by the black cab drivers. Unless the destination was within Zone 1 (the very centre of London), most of the time they hadn’t a clue.

  The one good thing about the black cabs is the glass panel dividing you from the driver & fact that you can switch off the intercom if you don’t fancy talking. And the cushy ride, something you don’t get in the minicabs…

• [Kytsune]

  This is awesome. Not just because it’s about taxi drivers — a favorite subject of mine — but because it’s neat to see things in operation.

  I rather liked the part of the article where they quote a researcher on how they were attempting to segregate data about navigation from other activity. Particularly how drivers ponder what their passengers are thinking. Since taxi driving is both a skill and a customer service experience.

• [padster123]

  Linus888 -

  Why have I “completely missed the point of ‘The Knowledge”?

  You say it is “effectively a degree or qualification in knowing your way around one of the most arcane and unplanned cities in the world.”

  Why bother, when a sat nav can do just as well? Why memorise the roads, when the computer’s knowledge is pretty well total, and can be updated regularly? When its route planning is more sophisticated and reliable?

  OK – there’s the theory that cabbies have some magic knowledge about where the traffic is bad, etc, but in my experience, any attempts they make to avoid traffic has a marginal effect.

• [Beanolini]

  Black cabs may be expensive (as some suggested above) for a single person, but for a group of three or four people, it is often cheaper than getting the Tube.

  Who knows, the Knowledge may one day mutate into a religion.

• [mdh]

  That diagram looks nothing like a miniaturized diorama of greater London!

• [minamisan]

  meanwhile, here’s a pretty accurate graphic of the inside of a Tokyo taxi driver’s brain:

  …

• [Anonymous]

  doing the knowledge now
  im a minicab driver with 2500 colleagues also in black people carriers
  i’ve driven and repeatedly called over (a knowledge study method) 1/3 of the runs- not bothering with points at this time
  just doing that much has really helped me in my job
  the sat nav is switched off now and i either know where to go already or i know the route to the drop area and use the a-z to fine tune it
  its really made my job much more of a pleasure to do as its much easier and i earn more as im able to be more responsive when despatched asap jobs

  i erm had a friend once who erm used to poach black cab jobs off a rank outside oceana kingston a few years ago and believe me theres a massive difference between a taxi driver who has done the knowledge and someone attempting to do the same job but who hasnt done the knowledge
  you advocates of sat nav think about this typical situation which my erm friend encountered:
  customer jumps in
  ‘take me to blah’
  driver:
  ‘whats the postcode?’
  cust:
  ‘kt12 4ab’
  driver’s fingers on sat nav:
  tap tap tappity tap tap
  customers feet on floor:
  stamp stamp stampitty stamp stamp
  cust:
  ‘do you know where you’re going mate’ – hic!
  driver – what was the street and door number again?
  customer
  “you taking me home or what?
  driver
  sorry some roads start in one postcode area and end in another and the satnav has it under one , not the other
  cust goes to sleep on the way
  at destination road:
  driver:
  ‘wake up we’re in the road but i cant see your door number- the sat nav swears its here ,but it can be out by 20 or 30 yards
  customer: see that triple carriageway? its the A frikkin 3 and its bisected my road since 1973 (made up)……

  and numerous other nasty experiences
  believe me- sat nav is for wimps

• [error404]

  “The Knowledge” is a remarkable thing to learn. It can be done in 18 months and it can take forever.

  But considering that traffic in the smoke is at the lowest speed since it was horse drawn and that the meter in the average FX4 Fairway (the london black cab) clocks up money at a terrifying speed it looks like it could be shows over for the Knowledge.

  UNless congestion charging thins the traffic back to 1950s levels and mini(gypsy)cabs are shut down I can’t see the black cab survivng.

  I lived in LOndon for several years and got a black cab once, from Picadilly to Hackney on Xmas day at about 9pm.

  Gawd bless the Jewish Cabbies of London, best £9 I ever spent.

• [mralistair]

  £9! it must hae been a few years ago, that’ll get you about as far as holburn now.

  i womder if the study found which part of the brain they use to figure out how well the customer knows London so they can take the most expensive route possible.

• [Keeper of the Lantern]

  When I first landed in London from NYC a little over 2 years ago, I keep seeing these guys on motorcycles that had what appeared to be a magazine or bookholder right in front of the driver. I kept joking, “Oh good. If they get bored driving their motorcycle they can read a a magazine.”

  But then I found out that these guys were working on “The Knowledge” and on the long road to getting black-cab certified (you can get certified for a region of London or for all of London).

  I do have to say that there’s a huge difference between London’s cabbies and NYC cab drivers, the latter of which rarely know much about the city or how best to get around.

  On the other hand, the Black cabs are outrageously expensive so I usually take the busses (like yesterday when I went down to Oxford the get a copy of Anathema and eat some Korean food).

• [Linus888]

  Padster123:

  I was born in HK and agree that the cabs there are very good value for money. But you’ve completely missed the point of ‘The Knowledge’. Speak to anyone who has ever studied for it. On average it takes 3 years to attain, although its true that those who study FULL TIME Mon-Fri can do it in about 18 months. Its effectively a degree or qualification in knowing your way around one of the most arcane and unplanned cities in the world.

  Did you know that the very first fare a newly qualified cabby picks up is ‘on the house’? Black cabs are part of the fabric of this city and long may that continue. There are plenty of other (cheaper) ways of getting around…each to their own.

• [error404]

  MRALISTAIR

  yes it was in the mid ninties, but it was because everyone was lying comatose from Xmas dinners that the streets were nearly empty.

  Other hint is eat out at a Japanese place for Xmas Dinner, it’s great.

• [Suburbancowboy]

  I would love for them to do a study on NYC cabbies and compare the data.
  I would prefer that they would use a test subject that would do something like, um, let’s say, ummm turn off of 9th ave and head crosstown straight into a late night Times Square traffic jam when I am trying to get to Penn Station.

• [mdh]

  Why bother, when a sat nav can do just as well?

  By that measure, why have Wall Street when the internet can do just as well and you never have to leave your house?

  Or Musicians? I have Rock Band after all.

  Or paper maps – what good could a paper map possibly be?

  [/sarcasm]

• [hassan-i-sabbah]

  The illustration missed the part of the cabbies brain that spews out ill-informed racist rants at the slightest provocation.

• [toolbag]

  The results of my study of cab American driver brains in the last year:

  “We need to go to museum.”

  NYC: “got it” -cab darts out into traffic
  DC: “that’s on ______ street right?” -cab eases out into traffic
  Baltimore: “we have a museum?” -cab sits for ten minutes while 20 other cabbies are contacted for directions despite me giving them the exact address

• [John Coulthart]

  Jack Rosenthal wrote a great, funny TV drama about would-be cabbies learning The Knowledge.

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knowledge-Nigel-Hawthorne/dp/B00006FN5P/

• [gobo]

  My recent NYC cab experiences show a total lack of any Knowledge whatsoever.

  I’m a tourist, man, I don’t know how to give you directions to a specific address in Manhattan. You’re a freakin’ CAB DRIVER, and you’ve got me pulling up Google Maps on my iPhone to tell you how to get to West 33rd St from Battery Park?

  Or, hey, here we are in Brooklyn. I need to go to such-and-such cross street. Why are we heading into Manhattan? Oh, because you don’t even know what borough my street’s in, of course.

• [mindpimp]

  Where’s the brain area that screeches at you in a language known to no culture on earth? I don’t know if I was being hit on, sworn at or asked to discuss the finer points of Nietzsche.

• [OM]

  …Kids, we need a volunteer graphics artist to design an image of a brain of a New York City cabbie. Now, having never been to NYC, I have to go by what I’ve been told by those who’ve lived there or have visited there more than once, and if my analysis is correct, you take the brain image above. reduce it by 5-10%, and then replace the blue region with a 3-D mesh of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, albeit one with at least 2/3 of the spaghetti strands that make up the body severed and blocked with solid projections of various colorful metaphors in at least three different Middle Eastern dialects!

  Ok, ok, if using the FSM is either too complex or sacreligious to you, then just draw a couple of pretzels interlocked and leave off the mustard…:-) :-)

• [padster123]

  Black cabs are absurdly over priced. I don’t know how the pie is divided (vehicle/training/licence/fuel etc), but it’s too big. Plus many cabbies are jerks – they think they own the road, and that their opinions are worth listening to, just because you are trapped in their vehicle. Contrast with cabs in Hong Kong – better designed vehicle (Toyota Crown?), and far far cheaper. The city of HK isn’t cheaper than London, necessarily, but the cabs certainly are. Anyway – all this business about The Knowledge, with cabbies having to be part of some secret brotherhood, is dead in the water. SAT NAV. Not a day too soon.

• [Antongarou]

  As usual:the article exaggerates things out of all possible proportion- fMRI has very poor time resolution, and if it happened as they show then each of these tasks is made up of so many disparate parts that there is simply no way of knowing what happened where.It’s either bad science or bad reporting(or both), and I hate them with a passion.

• [monstrinho_do_biscoito]

  silly cabbies, just buy sat nav like all the gyppo cabs.

• [error404]

  Padster I would go along with a lot of what you said but not on the actual cars.

  The London Black cab has a turning circle so tight it ends up with the front wheels on the back seat.

  And there’s no way of getting a wheel chair user into a Toyota Crown.

• [Ryan Waddell]

  Where’s the part of the brain that gives them the uncanny abiity to bust out the c-word without a second though?