Southend-on-Sea licenses 455 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 269 hackney carriages and 186 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.
560 driver licences are in force against those 455 vehicles, or 1.23 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
Southend-on-Sea licenses 2.51 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 4 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 thinner than typical: the East of England median is 2.52 per 1,000 residents.
Town and city demand of this kind is steady rather than spiky, and much of the dependable income comes from contract work: school runs, hospital appointments, account journeys.
Southend-on-Sea 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 both age and emissions standard and private hire vehicles to both age and emissions standard.
Southend-on-Sea 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.
Daily roadworthiness checks are a condition in Southend-on-Sea, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in Southend-on-Sea 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.
24.4 per cent of the licensed fleet in Southend-on-Sea is wheelchair accessible — 95 hackney carriages and 16 private hire vehicles.
That is a moderate accessible share: servable with notice, but not something to promise on demand at peak.
Southend-on-Sea publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Southend-on-Sea 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 PHV roadworthiness checks: "Yes" here, against "No" for 50 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.
