“Taxi” comes from the surname of a German family.
In 1867, the family business called Thurn und Taxis, operating in Germany, started to carry the government's letters and packages. Here, the word taxi first emerged with the surname of this family and became integrated with the profession over the years. While the word Taxis means traveling, rank, degree, classification, arrangement, categorization in ancient Greek, it also loaded with the meanings of wages and taxes when it moved to German.
In July 1894, two German entrepreneurs, Bruhn and Westendorf, requested an appointment from the London Trade Center to promote a design they called a taximeter. According to the news in the Police News newspaper dated July 7, this tool calculated the distance of the journey, how many passengers were transported and how much money would be paid in return. It came to life in March 1899, when the first car with a taximeter installed by Gottlieb Daimler began to serve in London, although it was prevented by the tradesmen of this business for 5 years (in order to be able to charge freely). And after this date, the name of the rented vehicle to go from one place to another began to be called "taxi". With the use of the taximeter, the passengers and vehicle owners were happy with the standardization of the transportation fare. Because people have started to use the taxi service more often, where they know how much they will pay. This exploded the demand and opened the jobs of taxi drivers. It is seen that the result is positive, the application has started to be used in other cities of England such as Liverpool, Bradford, Manchester and Leeds. In a very short time, people living in the cities of Buenos Aires and Paris were introduced to the taximeter.
An entrepreneur named Harry N. Allen, living in Paris, not only moved his taxi business to New York, but also became the father of the first idea of the yellow color of taxis, as it is known in many parts of the world today. This simple design has always existed in the development of taxi driving, thanks to its benefits such as being easily seen even in the dark and easily distinguishing those who do this job from other private cars. If you're wondering why London taxis are black, I can summarize it as a long story, but because of the common attitude of car owners who don't want to pay the extra fee for colored vehicles.
In Ottoman period Istanbul, transportation service was provided by phaeton. Although the ferries operating in the Bosphorus, the horse-drawn tram that started operating in 1869, the tunnel and suburban line that we still use, have narrowed the demand, things have revived with the immigration and the growth of the city. Remember, Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem's narrations in the novel Araba Sevdası!..
Ref: t24.com.tr/yazarlar/irfan-yalin/taksicilik-ve-dolmusculugumuzun-tarihi,21823