A jitney is a livery vehicle intermediate between a taxi and a bus. It is generally a small-capacity vehicle that follows a rough service route, but can go slightly out of its way to pick up and drop off passengers.
In some US jurisdictions the limit to a jitney is seven passengers. In Hong Kong, minibuses (sometimes maxicabs) carried a maximum of sixteen passengers.
While jitneys are fairly common in many less wealthy countries (such as the Philippines), they have also appeared in the past in some wealthier countries. For example, in Vancouver, Canada, in the 1920s, jitneys competed directly with the streetcar monopoly, operating along the same routes as the streetcars but charging lower fares. They were so successful that the city government banned them at the request of the streetcar operator.
After the oil crisis of 1974, jitneys began to reappear in some areas of the bastion of the private automobile, the United States, though their entrepreneurial, non-corporate and unregulated nature made many legislatures uneasy.
See also: Jeepney, Minibus
