Guidance

Taxi and private hire vehicle statistics, quality report: 2023

Updated 11 July 2023

Applies to England and Wales

About this release

This document supports the latest annual Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) Statistics.

For detailed commentary please see the annual statistical release.

About Taxi and Private Hire Statistics

The Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) Statistics are compiled mainly from responses to the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Survey. The survey is issued to all licensing authorities in England and Wales on an annual basis.

The Survey asks authorities to provide data on their licensed vehicles, their licensed drivers and their licensed PHV operators. The survey also captures details of licensing requirements and restrictions, as well as general licensing authority policies.

A copy of the survey form is available.

Other data sources such as the National Travel Survey and the Labour Force Survey are then used to provide additional contextual information.

Quality of the Taxi and PHV Data

The Taxi and PHV statistical release is produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics, and were confirmed as National Statistics in February 2013.

This report outlines some of the quality aspects of the data.

Coverage

The survey covers all taxi and PHV licensing authorities in England and Wales. In total there were 263 taxi and PHV licensing authorities in England as at 31 March 2023, and 22 in Wales. However, for the 2023 survey, responses were received separately from the 3 non-Metropolitan districts that make up the unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness, which was formed on 1 April 2023. The 4 districts that make up the new unitary authority of Somerset also provided separate returns for the 2023 survey. This was because these districts still had different licensing policies in place as at 1 April 2023 due to transitional arrangements following the creation of the new unitary authorities. Therefore 290 responses to the survey were received in total.

Strengths of the data

Long-term and continuous: The survey first ran in its current format in 2005, although some data is available as far back as 1965. The key questions on the numbers of licensed drivers, vehicles and operators allow for long term trends to be monitored. However, over the years the survey has been amended to reflect the changing demands of stakeholders. Such changes include:

• Survey frequency: Between 2005 and 2017 the statistics were collected and produced biennially. From 2018 the statistics have been collected and produced annually.

• In 2017 new questions were introduced to capture data on safeguarding measures, including whether drivers underwent DBS checks, whether drivers completed child sexual abuse or child sexual exploitation training, and the fitting of CCTV in vehicles.

• In 2019 new questions were introduced to capture the maintenance of lists of wheelchair accessible vehicles, information on limits on taxi numbers, the medical fitness requirements of driver applications, and the numbers (and results) of operator licence applications.

• In 2020 new questions were introduced to monitor the introduction of statutory standards, issued in July 2020.

• In 2020 the data collection was delayed from April and May to September due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This may have decreased the accuracy of some data provided due to the use of live systems, but it is not possible to estimate the size of this effects.

Limitations

Comparability: Licensing authorities use their own administrative data to monitor vehicles and drivers. This is used to provide figures to DfT in their survey responses. As some authorities use a live reporting system, figures may not always refer to the specified date requested (1 April for 2023 data) for data collection. In general this is thought unlikely to have an impact on the regional and national figures to any great degree. However, the delay to the data collection for 2020 from April and May to September due to the COVID-19 pandemic may have increased the impact for that year, but it is not possible to estimate the size of any effects. The use of a live database by licensing authorities to provide data often means that revised data for previous years cannot always be accurately provided when it is known that the data previously supplied was incorrect.

Licensees: The survey captures the numbers of licensed PHV operators, licensed drivers and licensed vehicles in each licensing authority, but not the numbers of licensed drivers and licensed vehicles by operator. Therefore the survey does not capture information on the market share of different operators, or the geographical spread of operators. The data collected will cover PHV operators and drivers who use app-based technology. However, we are not able to disaggregate which drivers are using these apps in the figures presented.

Journey details: The survey does not capture any details about journeys, such as the origin and destination, or journey purpose. It also does not capture any details of whether the journeys were booked via an app, nor the journey start and end times. Data on the types of journeys taken are presented based on analysis of the National Travel Survey.

Passenger details: The survey does not capture any details of the people using taxis or PHVs, such as their demographics, journey satisfaction, or the reasons behind their travel mode choice. Information on this can be obtained from other data sources such as the National Travel Survey, findings from which are included in the release.

Data Quality

As National Statistics, national level taxi and PHV statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for statistics, and many quality control measures are in place to ensure the integrity of the data. Local authority level data are not designated as National Statistics as data at that level are not as robust. Some other data sources in the statistical release are not National Statistics. This is indicated in the report and associated data tables.

Data collection is by a secure online survey.

Data returns are validated by comparing with previous figures and seeking explanations where differences are large or unexpected. This can result in revisions to previous years’ figures, though these are typically minor.

Reproducibility

The principles of RAP (reproducible analytical pipelines) are used to produce the publication tables and most of the publication charts. In 2023, most of the data validation process was also automated.

In the case of the publication charts, many of the charts have a significantly different look compared to previous years. Wherever possible, efforts have been made to conform to accessibility guidelines, for example by improving colour contrast and reducing clutter on charts.

For more details on how the principles of RAP are being applied in the Department for Transport (DfT), see the Analysis Function RAP Strategy 2023 Implementation Plan.

Other Dimensions of Quality

Response rates: In 2023 returns were received from all licensing authorities, a response rate of 100%. The response rate has consistently been 100%, and the cooperation of the local authorities is much appreciated.

Respondent burden: We estimate that the median time to complete the survey in 2023 was 60 minutes, a decrease from 90 minutes in 2022, but in line with the figure for 2021.

Timeliness: The survey reference period used for the main findings is 1 April 2023. However, some of the external data sources have different reference periods, and these are indicated throughout the survey, at the start of the relevant section. The statistical release was published in July 2023.

Accuracy: Licensing authorities use their own administrative data to monitor vehicles and drivers. This is used to provide figures to DfT in their survey responses. As some authorities use a live reporting system, figures may not always refer to the specified date requested (1 April) during data collection. In general this is thought unlikely to have an impact on the regional and national figures to any great degree, but it is not possible to estimate the size of any effects.

Some authorities can not provide numbers of wheelchair accessible vehicles. Data that has not been provided to us are highlighted in the table.

Revisions: Figures for previous years are sometimes revised. Any revisions will be indicated in the tables.

Other data sources

Within the statistical release other data sources have been used in addition to the taxi and PHV survey to provide a more complete picture of the taxi and PHV sector.

National Travel Survey (NTS): The NTS is a household survey of personal travel by residents of England travelling within Great Britain, from data collected via interviews and a seven day travel diary. Data from the NTS can be used to analyse the demographics of taxi and PHV users and the types of journeys users make. Data from the NTS have been designated as National Statistics. Further details are available.

Labour Force Survey: The Labour Force Survey is run by the Office for National Statistics. It is a household study which collects data on the employment circumstances of the UK population. The Labour Force Survey is used in the statistical release to provide information on the profile of taxi or private hire vehicle drivers. Further information is available.

The National Highways and Transport Public Satisfaction Survey: The National Highways and Transport Public Satisfaction Survey is an annual household postal survey carried out by the National Highways and Transport network that captures information on public satisfaction. The statistical release comments on the public perspective and satisfaction of using taxis or private hire vehicles. Although the methodology used ensures the data should be representative at local authority level, because not all local authorities participate the results may not be representative at national level. Further information is available. These estimates are not national statistics.

The number of areas which choose to participate varies from year to year, but for those which do participate, a representative sample of private households is selected and sent a paper questionnaire in the Summer (June to August). People living in care homes and others such as community living environments are not captured through the survey, which may have some impact on the satisfaction rates for those who use taxis.

Prosecutions under the Equality Act 2010: The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) captures data on prosecutions, including offences committed by taxi and private hire vehicle drivers and operators in relation to sections 168 and 170 (assistance dog refusals by taxi and PHV drivers), and section 165 (wheelchair user discrimination by taxi and PHV drivers) in England and Wales. Further information on these data is available.

Experimental statistics on taxi and PHV age and fuel type: In 2023, these data were compiled for the second year (after first inclusion in the 2022 publication) by matching the Taxi and PHV centralised database with the DVLA vehicle database. This allows the taxi or PHV licensing status of vehicles to be matched with vehicle characteristics (such as date of first registration and fuel type).

There are some known limitations with this approach. Firstly, the Taxi and PHV centralised database is maintained centrally but updated by individual licensing authorities. The frequency and quality of updates will vary across licensing authorities. Administrative errors and omissions are likely to make these figures an underestimate of the total taxi and PHV fleet, with this being more of an issue for some licensing authorities than others. For this reason we are not able to publish robust estimates below regional level at this stage.

Secondly, cases where vehicles have changed licence type from taxi to PHV or vice versa have been removed from the dataset to minimise the risk of duplication. This is also true where the licensing authority with which a vehicle is licensed has changed. This therefore means that the dataset does not include this sub-section of the overall fleet.

Therefore while the analysis generally gives a good indication of the characteristics of the taxi and PHV fleet in England, it represents a large proportion of the fleet rather than every vehicle in it. The proportion of all taxi and private hire vehicles represented in the dataset has gradually increased from around 80% in 2020 to around 90% in 2023.

The analysis that is presented in the publication is therefore at national and regional level, as it is not currently possible to produce robust figures at local authority level. Caution should also be taken in interpreting small changes over time at regional level, as in some regions there have been changes in coverage over the period 2020 to 2023.

In future years it is intended that this analysis will be developed further, to try to increase the robustness of the data and produce additional analysis and insights where possible.

National Register of Refusals, Revocations and Suspensions (NR3S): NR3S is an operational database maintained by the National Anti-Fraud Network (NAFN), containing records of all searches and entries carried out by licensing authorities. The figures are therefore management information, and not official statistics.

Use of the NR3S database was optional for licensing authorities during the year ending 31 March 2023. Use of the database has since been made mandatory in England (but not Wales) from April 2023 onwards. Prior to this, licensing authorities received access to the database at different times. Therefore caution should be exercised when attempting to make any comparisons between authorities.

Terminology

Vehicles and drivers

• Taxis, also known as hackney carriages, are available for immediate hire and can be hailed on the street (known as “plying for hire”). They can also accept pre-bookings.

• Private Hire Vehicles (PHVs), sometimes known as minicabs, must be pre-booked and cannot use taxi ranks. It is illegal for PHVs to ply for hire.

• Wheelchair accessible vehicles are designed to be accessible to disabled people. A vehicle is wheelchair accessible if it is possible for a person seated in a referenced wheelchair to be able to enter, leave and travel in the vehicle whilst remaining in the wheelchair.

• Dual licences are single licences allowing the driver to operate a taxi and a PHV.

Licensing policies

• A licensing policy statement (or equivalent document) is a unified policy bringing together all procedures. It covers areas such as vehicle standards and licensing conditions.

• A convictions policy details the criteria used to determine whether existing licence holders or new applicants are able to operate taxis or PHVs based on the applicant’s criminal convictions history.

• Unmet demand surveys are recommended in areas that set limits on the numbers of licensed taxis. Licensing authorities in England outside of London are able to set limits but need to be satisfied that there is no significant unmet demand for services.

• Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are checks carried out by employers which result in a DBS certificate issued to an individual. Further information is available about these checks.

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Contact details

Taxi statistics

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