There’s a new way to get around town starting Thursday. New York City is introducing “share cabs” – programs designed to lower the cost of a ride. But you won’t be alone!

Share a cab ride with a total stranger and you’ll save money. That’s the premise behind a pilot program that will turn taxi rides into a carpooling experience. New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission thinks strangers might want to start sharing taxis.

The share-a-cab pilot program is supposed to make it much easier to find a cab during peak hours and make it cheaper to get a cab ride by creating discounts and flat rates. Not everyone though, is thrilled.

Creepy or not, here’s how it would work:

Under one proposal, yellow cabs would be equipped with special meters that could calculate two discrete fares at once along the trip. Cabs would be marked as “sharecabs” and have electronic signs showing the neighborhood they were headed to.

But you’ll still have the option of hailing a cab the old-fashioned way, at full price.

That’s right and you still have the option of hailing a cab the old fashioned way — at full price. But wait, there’s more: The next part of the program involves a whole new species of taxi cab, one that has destination signs on top and in the front.

The first passenger would have their destination and anybody else along the way could say “Hey, I’m going that way,” hail the cab, get in or get out anywhere along the route. The cabs would have special “smart” meters that will be able to track as many as four different discrete fares along the trip.

(Source: WCBSTV)