Barrow-in-Furness licenses 244 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 186 hackney carriages and 58 private hire vehicles.
Hackney carriages lead the licensed fleet, so a meaningful share of driver earnings never passes through a booking channel at all — it comes off ranks and street hails.
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.
215 driver licences are in force against those 244 vehicles, or 0.88 drivers per vehicle. Most vehicles are effectively single-driver, so utilisation is capped by driver hours rather than by vehicle supply.
Barrow-in-Furness requires a licensed private hire operator to record 11 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, name of the booker and dispatcher name.
That is a demanding regime: most of the fields the DfT surveys are mandatory here.
Not required here: vehicle registration.
On vehicles, hackney carriages are held to no age or emissions standard restrictions and private hire vehicles to no age or emissions standard restrictions.
Barrow-in-Furness does not cap hackney carriage licence numbers, so the fleet can grow with demand. What limits growth is the cost of meeting the standards, not waiting for a plate to come free.
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 Barrow-in-Furness, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in Barrow-in-Furness can be sent a job, background screening is enhanced dbs and barred list checks, a topographical or navigational assessment must be passed and safeguarding training covering child sexual exploitation and county lines is required.
Barrow-in-Furness 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.
5.3 per cent of the licensed fleet in Barrow-in-Furness is wheelchair accessible — 2 hackney carriages and 11 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.
Barrow-in-Furness publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Barrow-in-Furness departs from the majority answer on 7 of the surveyed licensing policies.
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.
Hackney safeguarding training: "No safeguarding" here, against "Both" for 72 per cent of authorities.
PHV safeguarding training: "No safeguarding" here, against "Both" for 72 per cent of authorities.
Disability awareness training for hackney drivers: "No" here, against "Yes" for 64 per cent of authorities.
