LeetCode #2008 — MEDIUM

Maximum Earnings From Taxi

Move from brute-force thinking to an efficient approach using array strategy.

Solve on LeetCode
The Problem

Problem Statement

There are n points on a road you are driving your taxi on. The n points on the road are labeled from 1 to n in the direction you are going, and you want to drive from point 1 to point n to make money by picking up passengers. You cannot change the direction of the taxi.

The passengers are represented by a 0-indexed 2D integer array rides, where rides[i] = [starti, endi, tipi] denotes the ith passenger requesting a ride from point starti to point endi who is willing to give a tipi dollar tip.

For each passenger i you pick up, you earn endi - starti + tipi dollars. You may only drive at most one passenger at a time.

Given n and rides, return the maximum number of dollars you can earn by picking up the passengers optimally.

Note: You may drop off a passenger and pick up a different passenger at the same point.

Example 1:

Input: n = 5, rides = [[2,5,4],[1,5,1]]
Output: 7
Explanation: We can pick up passenger 0 to earn 5 - 2 + 4 = 7 dollars.

Example 2:

Input: n = 20, rides = [[1,6,1],[3,10,2],[10,12,3],[11,12,2],[12,15,2],[13,18,1]]
Output: 20
Explanation: We will pick up the following passengers:
- Drive passenger 1 from point 3 to point 10 for a profit of 10 - 3 + 2 = 9 dollars.
- Drive passenger 2 from point 10 to point 12 for a profit of 12 - 10 + 3 = 5 dollars.
- Drive passenger 5 from point 13 to point 18 for a profit of 18 - 13 + 1 = 6 dollars.
We earn 9 + 5 + 6 = 20 dollars in total.

Constraints:

  • 1 <= n <= 105
  • 1 <= rides.length <= 3 * 104
  • rides[i].length == 3
  • 1 <= starti < endi <= n
  • 1 <= tipi <= 105
Patterns Used

Roadmap

  1. Brute Force Baseline
  2. Core Insight
  3. Algorithm Walkthrough
  4. Edge Cases
  5. Full Annotated Code
  6. Interactive Study Demo
  7. Complexity Analysis
Step 01

Brute Force Baseline

Problem summary: There are n points on a road you are driving your taxi on. The n points on the road are labeled from 1 to n in the direction you are going, and you want to drive from point 1 to point n to make money by picking up passengers. You cannot change the direction of the taxi. The passengers are represented by a 0-indexed 2D integer array rides, where rides[i] = [starti, endi, tipi] denotes the ith passenger requesting a ride from point starti to point endi who is willing to give a tipi dollar tip. For each passenger i you pick up, you earn endi - starti + tipi dollars. You may only drive at most one passenger at a time. Given n and rides, return the maximum number of dollars you can earn by picking up the passengers optimally. Note: You may drop off a passenger and pick up a different passenger at the same point.

Baseline thinking

Start with the most direct exhaustive search. That gives a correctness anchor before optimizing.

Pattern signal: Array · Hash Map · Binary Search · Dynamic Programming

Example 1

5
[[2,5,4],[1,5,1]]

Example 2

20
[[1,6,1],[3,10,2],[10,12,3],[11,12,2],[12,15,2],[13,18,1]]

Related Problems

  • Maximum Profit in Job Scheduling (maximum-profit-in-job-scheduling)
  • Maximum Number of Events That Can Be Attended (maximum-number-of-events-that-can-be-attended)
  • Maximum Number of Events That Can Be Attended II (maximum-number-of-events-that-can-be-attended-ii)
Step 02

Core Insight

What unlocks the optimal approach

  • Can we sort the array to help us solve the problem?
  • We can use dynamic programming to keep track of the maximum at each position.
Interview move: turn each hint into an invariant you can check after every iteration/recursion step.
Step 03

Algorithm Walkthrough

Iteration Checklist

  1. Define state (indices, window, stack, map, DP cell, or recursion frame).
  2. Apply one transition step and update the invariant.
  3. Record answer candidate when condition is met.
  4. Continue until all input is consumed.
Use the first example testcase as your mental trace to verify each transition.
Step 04

Edge Cases

Minimum Input
Single element / shortest valid input
Validate boundary behavior before entering the main loop or recursion.
Duplicates & Repeats
Repeated values / repeated states
Decide whether duplicates should be merged, skipped, or counted explicitly.
Extreme Constraints
Upper-end input sizes
Re-check complexity target against constraints to avoid time-limit issues.
Invalid / Corner Shape
Empty collections, zeros, or disconnected structures
Handle special-case structure before the core algorithm path.
Step 05

Full Annotated Code

Source-backed implementations are provided below for direct study and interview prep.

// Accepted solution for LeetCode #2008: Maximum Earnings From Taxi
class Solution {
    private int m;
    private int[][] rides;
    private Long[] f;

    public long maxTaxiEarnings(int n, int[][] rides) {
        Arrays.sort(rides, (a, b) -> a[0] - b[0]);
        m = rides.length;
        f = new Long[m];
        this.rides = rides;
        return dfs(0);
    }

    private long dfs(int i) {
        if (i >= m) {
            return 0;
        }
        if (f[i] != null) {
            return f[i];
        }
        int[] r = rides[i];
        int st = r[0], ed = r[1], tip = r[2];
        int j = search(ed, i + 1);
        return f[i] = Math.max(dfs(i + 1), dfs(j) + ed - st + tip);
    }

    private int search(int x, int l) {
        int r = m;
        while (l < r) {
            int mid = (l + r) >> 1;
            if (rides[mid][0] >= x) {
                r = mid;
            } else {
                l = mid + 1;
            }
        }
        return l;
    }
}
Step 06

Interactive Study Demo

Use this to step through a reusable interview workflow for this problem.

Press Step or Run All to begin.
Step 07

Complexity Analysis

Time
O(m × log m)
Space
O(m)

Approach Breakdown

LINEAR SCAN
O(n) time
O(1) space

Check every element from left to right until we find the target or exhaust the array. Each comparison is O(1), and we may visit all n elements, giving O(n). No extra space needed.

BINARY SEARCH
O(log n) time
O(1) space

Each comparison eliminates half the remaining search space. After k comparisons, the space is n/2ᵏ. We stop when the space is 1, so k = log₂ n. No extra memory needed — just two pointers (lo, hi).

Shortcut: Halving the input each step → O(log n). Works on any monotonic condition, not just sorted arrays.
Coach Notes

Common Mistakes

Review these before coding to avoid predictable interview regressions.

Off-by-one on range boundaries

Wrong move: Loop endpoints miss first/last candidate.

Usually fails on: Fails on minimal arrays and exact-boundary answers.

Fix: Re-derive loops from inclusive/exclusive ranges before coding.

Mutating counts without cleanup

Wrong move: Zero-count keys stay in map and break distinct/count constraints.

Usually fails on: Window/map size checks are consistently off by one.

Fix: Delete keys when count reaches zero.

Boundary update without `+1` / `-1`

Wrong move: Setting `lo = mid` or `hi = mid` can stall and create an infinite loop.

Usually fails on: Two-element ranges never converge.

Fix: Use `lo = mid + 1` or `hi = mid - 1` where appropriate.

State misses one required dimension

Wrong move: An incomplete state merges distinct subproblems and caches incorrect answers.

Usually fails on: Correctness breaks on cases that differ only in hidden state.

Fix: Define state so each unique subproblem maps to one DP cell.