Broadland licenses 653 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 0 hackney carriages and 653 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.
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.
715 driver licences are in force against those 653 vehicles, or 1.09 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
Broadland licenses 4.88 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 86 per cent above the national midpoint.
Licensed supply sits far above the national midpoint. In a market this saturated the winning operator is rarely the one with the most cars; it is the one whose quoted arrival time is the time that actually happens.
Against its own region the fleet is denser than typical: the East of England median is 2.52 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.
Broadland requires a licensed private hire operator to record 11 of the 12 booking details the DfT surveys: passenger name, time 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.
That is a demanding regime: most of the fields the DfT surveys are mandatory here.
Not required here: date the booking was made.
On vehicles, private hire vehicles to no age or emissions standard restrictions.
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 Broadland can be sent a job, background screening is enhanced dbs and barred list checks, 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.
Broadland 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.
8.3 per cent of the licensed fleet in Broadland 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.
Broadland departs from the majority answer on 4 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Hackney topographical assessment: "No" here, against "Topological" for 65 per cent of authorities.
PHV topographical assessment: "No" here, against "Topological" for 52 per cent of authorities.
Hackney English-standard requirement: "Oral" here, against "Both" for 50 per cent of authorities.
PHV English-standard requirement: "Oral" here, against "Both" for 51 per cent of authorities.
Yes. In the reporting year Broadland refused 1 operator licence applications, suspended 0 and revoked 0.
