South Tyneside licenses 497 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 236 hackney carriages and 261 private hire vehicles.
The fleet splits fairly evenly between the two trades. That is the awkward middle: drivers move between rank work and booked jobs during a shift, so availability is genuinely uncertain unless something tracks it.
At this size the operator is often still on the phones, so anything that removes a keystroke from taking a booking pays for itself immediately.
498 driver licences are in force against those 497 vehicles, or 1.00 drivers per vehicle. Most vehicles are effectively single-driver, so utilisation is capped by driver hours rather than by vehicle supply.
South Tyneside licenses 3.34 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 27 per cent above the national midpoint.
Supply is comfortably above the national midpoint, so operators tend to compete on reliability and account work rather than on simply having a vehicle free.
Against its own region the fleet is denser than typical: the North East median is 2.80 per 1,000 residents.
South Tyneside requires a licensed private hire operator to record 10 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 and vehicle registration.
That is a demanding regime: most of the fields the DfT surveys are mandatory here.
Not required here: name of the booker and dispatcher name.
On vehicles, hackney carriages are held to an emissions standard and private hire vehicles to an emissions standard.
South Tyneside caps the number of hackney carriage licences it issues, so plate availability rather than demand sets the ceiling on that half of the fleet. Capped areas tend to see plates hold value and change hands, with growth pushed towards private hire, where numbers are not restricted.
In-vehicle CCTV is permitted but not required here, so it stays an operator decision rather than a licence condition.
Before a new driver in South Tyneside can be sent a job, background screening is enhanced dbs and barred list checks, a topographical or navigational assessment must be passed, safeguarding training covering child sexual exploitation and county lines is required and disability awareness training is mandatory.
South Tyneside 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.
9.3 per cent of the licensed fleet in South Tyneside is wheelchair accessible — 28 hackney carriages and 18 private hire vehicles.
That is a thin accessible share, so accessible bookings need planning rather than absorbing, and one vehicle off the road materially cuts capacity.
South Tyneside publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
South Tyneside departs from the majority answer on 4 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Caps hackney carriage licence numbers: "Yes" here, against "No" for 74 per cent of authorities.
Requires daily hackney roadworthiness checks: "No" here, against "Yes" for 51 per cent of authorities.
Hackney English-standard requirement: "No" here, against "Both" for 50 per cent of authorities.
PHV English-standard requirement: "No" here, against "Both" for 51 per cent of authorities.
