North Northamptonshire licenses 818 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 218 hackney carriages and 600 private hire vehicles.
Private hire clearly leads the licensed fleet, so most work arrives pre-booked through a phone line, an app or a web form before any driver moves.
A fleet in this range is past the point where one controller sees everything at once, but not yet big enough to absorb a bad half-hour without customers noticing.
1,083 driver licences are in force against those 818 vehicles, or 1.32 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
North Northamptonshire licenses 2.25 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 14 per cent below the national midpoint.
Licensed supply is close to the national midpoint, which usually means demand and supply trade places by time of day rather than one dominating.
Against its own region the fleet is denser than typical: the East Midlands median is 2.13 per 1,000 residents.
A dense core with significant rural surroundings means two operations in one — quick town work, and long spurs that tie a vehicle up for the better part of an hour.
North Northamptonshire requires a licensed private hire operator to record 12 of the 12 booking details the DfT surveys: passenger name, time the booking was made, date the booking was made, pick-up time, pick-up date, pick-up point, main destination, driver name, driver licence number, vehicle registration, name of the booker and dispatcher name.
This is close to the strictest record-keeping regime in the survey — very nearly every booking field the DfT asks about is mandatory here.
On vehicles, hackney carriages are held to both age and emissions standard and private hire vehicles to both age and emissions standard.
In-vehicle CCTV is permitted but not required here, so it stays an operator decision rather than a licence condition.
Daily roadworthiness checks are a condition in North Northamptonshire, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in North Northamptonshire can be sent a job, background screening is enhanced dbs and barred list checks, a topographical or navigational assessment must be passed, drivers must meet a minimum spoken and written English standard, safeguarding training covering child sexual exploitation and county lines is required and disability awareness training is mandatory.
North Northamptonshire also requires a DBS check for the people taking and dispatching bookings, not only for drivers, so office staff sit inside the compliance perimeter too.
19.8 per cent of the licensed fleet in North Northamptonshire is wheelchair accessible — 162 hackney carriages and 0 private hire vehicles.
That is a moderate accessible share: servable with notice, but not something to promise on demand at peak.
North Northamptonshire publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
North Northamptonshire departs from the majority answer on 5 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Caps hackney carriage licence numbers: "For some (but not all) areas" here, against "No" for 74 per cent of authorities.
Requires daily PHV roadworthiness checks: "Yes" here, against "No" for 50 per cent of authorities.
PHV topographical assessment: "No" here, against "Topological" for 52 per cent of authorities.
Hackney safeguarding training: "CSA/CSE only" here, against "Both" for 72 per cent of authorities.
PHV safeguarding training: "CSA/CSE only" here, against "Both" for 72 per cent of authorities.
