Herefordshire, County of licenses 275 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 198 hackney carriages and 77 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.
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.
350 driver licences are in force against those 275 vehicles, or 1.27 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
Herefordshire, County of licenses 1.46 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 44 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 West Midlands median is 2.27 per 1,000 residents.
The area is largely rural: long journeys, thin return loads, and a standing risk of sending a car twenty minutes out to earn a five-minute fare.
Herefordshire, County of 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, hackney carriages are held to a maximum vehicle age and private hire vehicles to a maximum vehicle age.
Herefordshire, County of 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.
Daily roadworthiness checks are a condition in Herefordshire, County of, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in Herefordshire, County of can be sent a job, background screening is enhanced dbs and barred list checks, a topographical or navigational assessment must be passed, drivers must meet a minimum spoken and written English standard and safeguarding training covering child sexual exploitation and county lines is required.
Herefordshire, County of 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.
13.8 per cent of the licensed fleet in Herefordshire, County of is wheelchair accessible — 30 hackney carriages and 8 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.
Herefordshire, County of publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Herefordshire, County of departs from the majority answer on 9 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Hackney CCTV policy: "Yes" here, against "Allow" for 92 per cent of authorities.
PHV CCTV policy: "Yes" here, against "Allow" for 92 per cent of authorities.
Requires daily PHV roadworthiness checks: "Yes" here, against "No" for 50 per cent of authorities.
Hackney topographical assessment: "Both" here, against "Topological" for 65 per cent of authorities.
PHV topographical assessment: "Both" here, against "Topological" for 52 per cent of authorities.
Hackney English-standard requirement: "Oral" here, against "Both" for 50 per cent of authorities.
