Most taxi drivers already know the right time/areas to go to get hailed, and to get the kind of hails they want(IE not to JFK or LGA, the bronx, most of queens/BK). Even though it is just tribal knowledge, I'd be really surprised if it wasn't largely accurate.

Why don't they want to get hailed to JFK?

Long drive, capped rates as already mentioned. Also once there you cannot immediately pick up another passenger - you have to go to the central "taxi pool" where you get to line up with dozens/hundreds of other cabs for the privilege of picking up a fare.

So as a driver your choices are to wait forever in a line to pick up a fare from the airport, or beeline it back to Manhattan as quickly as you can with an empty car. Neither are great choices.

Although in the wee hours (between 1 and 6AM), getting a hail to JFK is not bad, because it only takes ~20 minutes to get there, and yields a $60 fare. But during rush hour, getting stuck going to JFK is the worst thing possible, as you lose ~2-3 hours of the best fare times.

Which is why you should use the AE/Penn Station train during rush hour (it'll be faster than a cab), or tip your cabbie very well (30%+), though it still ends up being sucky for them and stressful for you.

Certain destinations (outer-boroughs) will earn you a "shorty" that lets cabbies skip the airport taxi pool lines. Most cabbies prefer this scenario.

It's a long drive (from Manhattan) and the airport rates are capped around ~$40 or so.

Damn, I wish we had that in the Bay Area. I usually take Uber or another black car service from SFO because to Oakland in a taxi it's $90+ on the meter and lots of extra fees.

:-) i thought that was no market for it : i wrote the heat map for specifically that purpose :

Where People Are in NYC ? Look at places where taxi pick up their passengers :

Guide To Uber Drivers : Where to get passengers at given time of day

https://github.com/akuchlous/NYC_CAB_ANALYTICS

Do they really? I just asked my Uber driver yesterday and he said that Uber does not provide him anything like that. I was quite surprised.

An UberX driver said the same to me and I was surprised as well, but after thinking about it, it started to make more sense. What could Uber really tell them beforehand that they wouldn't already know, or learn very quickly from driving around?

The driver thought Uber didn't provide the information because they want to be able to charge surge pricing, but that cannot be right. Uber doesn't want to charge surge prices unless they absolutely have to because they reduce the number of rides people take.

Considering how much money Uber invests in giving away free rides and temporarily reducing prices to increase ridership, they clearly see a lot of value per ride, especially for travelers who are more likely to be at an event, try Uber for the first time, and then bring that demand home to their own cities.

Surge pricing only makes sense in situations where drivers need additional incentive to go out in the first place.

I thought they built it but scrapped it after discovering the predictions weren't very good.

They use the data for pricing I believe.

From what I've heard, Lyft is just testing this sort of heatmap with Android drivers, and that it isn't yet available for iOS drivers.