Eden licenses 88 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 62 hackney carriages and 26 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.
107 driver licences are in force against those 88 vehicles, or 1.22 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
Eden requires a licensed private hire operator to record 7 of the 12 booking details the DfT surveys: passenger name, pick-up time, pick-up date, pick-up point, main destination, driver name and vehicle registration.
That is a middling regime — some fields are mandatory, the rest are left to the operator's judgement.
Not required here: time the booking was made, date the booking was made, driver licence number, name of the booker and dispatcher name.
On vehicles, hackney carriages are held to a maximum vehicle age and private hire vehicles to a maximum vehicle age.
Eden 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 Eden, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in Eden 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.
0 per cent of the licensed fleet in Eden is wheelchair accessible — 0 hackney carriages and 0 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.
Eden publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Eden departs from the majority answer on 9 of the surveyed licensing policies.
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: "No" here, against "Topological" for 52 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.
