Karsan CONCEPT V1 London Taxi Model

Karsan CONCEPT V1 London Taxi Model
The V1 platform, initially developed in response to New York's Taxi of Tomorrow tender, is also attempting to satisfy a global social demand. After being hailed as New Yorkers' favorite "Taxi of Tomorrow" at its launch, Concept V1 is now promoted as a highly accessible vehicle designed to facilitate and enhance transportation for society's mobility impaired members.

Today, the majority of our societies are urban, partly due to the dense social and economic interaction engendered by the modern world. Yet, these same urban environments have become a hindrance for social connections, one of the root causes of their formation. The inevitable urbanization trends resulting from increasingly densely-populated cities led to various social barriers, which in turn triggered complementary ways of communication. For those of us experiencing problems and discomfort in our efforts to connect and mix into the urban environment so as to benefit from the intellectual and physical opportunities offered by the surrounding urban area, the internet came to the rescue. As a result, people, such as the elderly, obese disabled or others with various mobility impairments, have become increasingly homebound and alienated from the external environment.

Concept V1 aims to eliminate the difficulty of traveling in a private car as being a reason for becoming homebound for all the elderly, the wheelchair dependant, the overweight, the pregnant, families with many children, people with large luggage loads or recreational equipment: anyone not suitable for a conventional vehicle, in fact.

The Turkish automotive manufacturer Karsan, one of the three finalist of the NYC Taxi of Tomorrow tender, which initially designed its taxi for the NYC ToT tender, has since developed this platform as a vehicle for everyone. Concept V1 was designed for the convenient use of all taxi commuters, operators and drivers, including people with reduced mobility, especially ones who travel in wheelchairs, the elderly, those with strollers and prams and passengers carrying lots or cumbersome packages.