South Derbyshire licenses 111 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 0 hackney carriages and 111 private hire vehicles.
Almost the entire licensed fleet is private hire, which may not be hailed or wait on a rank. Every journey has to be pre-booked, so the booking channel and the dispatch system are the business rather than a support function.
A licensed fleet this small is usually owner-run, and the pressing problem is not allocation but coverage: who answers the phone when the person who normally does is driving.
151 driver licences are in force against those 111 vehicles, or 1.36 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
South Derbyshire licenses 1.00 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 62 per cent below the national midpoint.
Licensed supply is well below the national midpoint. Where vehicles are this scarce a missed pick-up costs more, because the customer has few alternatives and long memories.
Against its own region the fleet is thinner 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.
South Derbyshire 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, private hire vehicles to a maximum vehicle age.
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 South Derbyshire, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
2.7 per cent of the licensed fleet in South Derbyshire is wheelchair accessible.
That is a thin accessible share, so accessible bookings need planning rather than absorbing, and one vehicle off the road materially cuts capacity.
South Derbyshire departs from the majority answer on 2 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Requires daily PHV roadworthiness checks: "Yes" here, against "No" for 50 per cent of authorities.
PHV topographical assessment: "Both" here, against "Topological" for 52 per cent of authorities.
Yes. In the reporting year South Derbyshire refused 0 operator licence applications, suspended 0 and revoked 1.
