Nice taxi drivers? Maybe a $500 bonus will make them smile

Hoping to inspire Boston taxi drivers to be nice, Boston Convention & Exhibition Center officials on Friday are launching a new $500 monthly prize for cabbies who are praised by conventioneers for being courteous and knowing where they're going.

The contest is being launched at the beginning of a three-day Japanese-English bilingual job fair called DISCO International, which is expected to draw 5,000 attendees.

BCEC officials will hand out cards asking conventioneers: Was your driver courteous and helpful? Was the taxi’s cleanliness acceptable? Was your driver a good ambassador for the city of Boston? Did your driver know where he or she was going?

Passengers who think their driver passed those tests can hand the Taxi Reward card to the driver, who can then turn it in to a BCEC manager to be eligible for one of two $500 prizes to be randomly drawn each month.

Other conventions where the cards will be handed out include a 50,000-person Real Estate Wealth Expo on Dec. 2 and 3, a Microsoft Corp. 2,000-person event Jan. 24, and the 15,500-attendee New England Grows garden trade show Feb. 6 through 8.

“Every part of your trip matters when you go to a city for a convention and we want to thank the cab drivers who act like true ambassadors for the city and treat our visitors with courtesy and respect,” said James E. Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, which runs the BCEC.

(By Peter J. Howe, Globe staff)