Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gasoline-powered taxicabs began operating in New York in 1907, when Harry Nathaniel Allen imported the first 600 gas-powered cabs from France. The first domestically produced taxicabs followed in 1908, built at Bristol Engineering in Bristol, Connecticut.
Taxicab is a contraction of taximeter and cabriolet. Taximeter derives from the German Taxameter, rooted in the word Taxe meaning tax or charge, which traces to Ancient Greek taxis meaning to place in order. Cabriolet is a French word for a light horse-drawn carriage, from a root meaning to leap, ultimately from Latin capreolus, meaning wild goat.
On the 7th of September 1914, Military Governor Joseph Gallieni commandeered roughly six hundred Parisian taxicabs to transport about six thousand soldiers to the front at Nanteuil-le-Haudouin, fifty kilometers away, within twenty-four hours. The drivers kept their meters running and the French treasury reimbursed a total fare of 70,012 francs. It was the first recorded large-scale use of motorized infantry in battle.
Joseph Hansom, an architect from York, designed and patented the hansom cab in 1834. His two-wheel vehicle was lighter and faster than earlier hackney carriages and agile enough for London's congested streets. John Chapman and several others later modified the original design while retaining Hansom's name.
London made all its taxis fully wheelchair accessible by January 2000, with every cab fitted with a pull-out or portable ramp. Wheelchair-accessible taxicabs, sometimes called maxicabs, are now part of regular fleets in many cities worldwide.
South Africa deregulated taxis in 1987, triggering fierce competition that led new drivers to form rival cartels. These cartels used violence and gangland tactics to control desirable routes, resulting in between 120 and 330 deaths annually since deregulation. The cartels also engaged in anticompetitive price-fixing.