Those of you who drive either a taxi or private hire vehicle may be interested to read the Statistical Release document dated the 25th September 2019 entitled “Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Statistics, England: 2019“ relating to such vehicles as at the 31st March 2019 published by the Department of Transport. Below we mention just some of the data contained in the document.

For instance, in England the number of licensed drivers of such vehicles has increased significantly from 242,100 in 2005 to 362,600 in 2019 with this being 1,400 more than in 2018. The number of licensed vehicles in England has gone up from 184,500 in 2005 to 291,800 in 2019 with this being 7,200 more than in 2018. We are sure that you will agree these are significant increases. 15% of licenses were for taxi only, 63% of licenses were for private hire vehicles only and 23% were for both taxi and private hire vehicles. The biggest increase in total driver licenses in percentage terms in the 12 months to March 2019 was in the West Midlands at 15.8%. The biggest fall was in London at -5.5%.

It is also interesting that private hire vehicles made up 76% of all licensed vehicles but there may well be some people who would have thought that there were more taxis than private hire vehicles.

London is certainly a popular place for licensed vehicles with 37% of such vehicles being licensed in England’s capital city.

The following statistic may surprise some people – only 2% of drivers of licensed vehicles are women. It is certainly a male dominated occupation.

Did you know that 83% of licensed vehicle drivers are self-employed?

The average age of licensed vehicle drivers is 47 so it would certainly appear to attract the more mature driver. In fact, 40% of such drivers are actually over the age of 50. Perhaps this gives the passenger greater peace of mind about the driving capability of the driver.

It is interesting that women passengers make more journeys in either a taxi or private hire vehicle than a man – 11 versus 10 but travel less miles than a man – 56 miles versus 69 miles.

The local authority that saw the biggest rise in the percentage of licensed vehicles was Lewes between 2018 and 2019 with a 91.6% increase.

We trust that you have found the above to be of interest but why not take a look at the full Statistical Release document that you can find on the Internet for even more information.