Dorset licenses 1,488 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 544 hackney carriages and 944 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.
A fleet in this range is past the point where one controller sees everything at once, but not yet big enough to absorb a bad half-hour without customers noticing.
1,297 driver licences are in force against those 1,488 vehicles, or 0.87 drivers per vehicle. Most vehicles are effectively single-driver, so utilisation is capped by driver hours rather than by vehicle supply.
Dorset licenses 3.88 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 48 per cent above the national midpoint.
Supply is comfortably above the national midpoint, so operators tend to compete on reliability and account work rather than on simply having a vehicle free.
Against its own region the fleet is denser than typical: the South West median is 2.14 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.
Dorset 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 no age or emissions standard restrictions and 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 Dorset 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.
Dorset 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.
5.4 per cent of the licensed fleet in Dorset is wheelchair accessible — 32 hackney carriages and 49 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.
Dorset publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Dorset departs from the majority answer on 8 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Caps hackney carriage licence numbers: "For some (but not all) areas" here, against "No" for 74 per cent of authorities.
Requires daily hackney roadworthiness checks: "No" here, against "Yes" for 51 per cent of authorities.
Hackney topographical assessment: "Both" here, against "Topological" for 65 per cent of authorities.
PHV topographical assessment: "No" here, against "Topological" for 52 per cent of authorities.
Hackney safeguarding training: "CSA/CSE only" here, against "Both" for 72 per cent of authorities.
PHV safeguarding training: "CSA/CSE only" here, against "Both" for 72 per cent of authorities.
