London Black cabs are overpriced, and there's no market check that stabilises price, as much as I respect the institution of "The Knowledge", you are still bound by the need to trust your driver, and many are just opportunistic.<p>The Knowledge may make for better navigation, but as a customer, the amount of times it actually comes in useful (road works, accident, awkward route) is very low, 90% of journeys are straightforward.<p>It certainly doesn't justify the 50%-100% price increase for the privilege of hailing the cab on the street vs. by pre-booking, especially when most of the time the route you are taking is short (no Londoner in their right mind would use a black cab for a long journey, unless they have money to squander or it's so late at night that you're desperate)<p>The likelihood of getting any real value out of the knowledge when taking a cab in London is very low, and the fact I need to pay for idling in traffic with an un-capped fare potential on top of jacked rates just makes for a terrible proposition.<p>As a consumer, there's just no value in that, and Black Cabs need to evolve or compete themselves back into relevance, bring on Uber, Lyft, Wheel and any other newcomers.<p>Source: 14 years of being a grumpy Londoner.