eginning in June 2004, passengers in Chicago's 7,900 licensed taxi cabs will have the option to pay their fares with credit cards. By Nov. 1, 2005, New York City's 12,187 cabs will be outfitted to accept card payments.

While other U.S. cities have plans to implement the same types of programs, and paying for cab rides with some sort of payment card in many cities around the world is commonplace, not everyone is hailing the advent of wireless POS capabilities in taxis.

The adoption of wireless payment technologies in processing transactions is meant to reduce the number of bad payments for fares-by eliminating card authorizations that are declined later-and the amount of cash drivers carry.

Implementation of wireless payments in New York comes with concessions to cabbies including a 26% increase in all fares; new fees have also been added for driving at night and making trips to and from JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports.

Many cab drivers are not convinced that card payments will create a lot of convenience for themselves or their customers, and they're concerned about the expenses involved in installing the wireless terminals and for the transaction processing fees.

In New York, with its own version of how quickly a minute goes, life is fast-paced and passengers may not want to waste time waiting for card approvals and signing receipts, despite the fast transactions wireless technology now provides.

New York cabbies, not the customers, will be paying the transaction fees for each card payment, a fee that does not apply when riders pay with cash. That's in addition to the 8% fee taxi garages collect from drivers.

One major factor in selling wireless payment processing to Chicago cabbies was to ensure that transactions could be verified immediately.

That point was settled in part from having access to an extensive wireless infrastructure using Nextel, Verizon, CDPD, Mobitex and private radio networks. The decision by several firms to give cab drivers cash for their credit card slips at the end of the day helped, too.