US taxi and limousine market data, county by county

What is County Business Patterns, and what does it actually count?

County Business Patterns is the Census Bureau's annual census of US business establishments. For the for-hire vehicle trade it reports two industries: NAICS 485310, taxi and ridesharing services, and NAICS 485320, limousine service. For each it publishes the number of establishments, mid-March employment, annual payroll, and how many establishments fall into each employment-size band.

Two limits matter when reading these pages. It counts business locations, not vehicles or drivers — a single operator running forty cars is one establishment. And the Census suppresses or noise-infuses figures that would disclose an individual business, so employment carries a flag and some counties publish no industry detail at all. Where that is the case we do not publish a page.

Why is the size distribution the most useful column?

Because it tells you who you are actually competing with, and who you are selling to. A county where 90 per cent of operators employ fewer than five people is an owner-driver market: decisions are made by the person driving, and time-to-first-booking beats configurability. A county with a tier of larger fleets is a different business entirely — controller workflow, account billing and reporting carry the weight.

Unlike England and Wales, the United States has no national register of licensed taxis: licensing is municipal and the rules differ city by city. If you operate in the UK, our licensing data for all England and Wales authorities covers the equivalent ground from the register side.

Where are for-hire operators densest per head?

Density per 100,000 residents is the fairer comparison when sizing a market. The median across published county markets is 2.16.