North Hertfordshire licenses 259 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 162 hackney carriages and 97 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.
300 driver licences are in force against those 259 vehicles, or 1.16 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
North Hertfordshire licenses 1.93 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 26 per cent below the national midpoint.
Licensed supply is below the national midpoint, so peak demand routinely exceeds available vehicles. The operational win is honest quoting and declining work you cannot service, not more marketing spend.
Against its own region the fleet is thinner 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.
North Hertfordshire requires a licensed private hire operator to record 8 of the 12 booking details the DfT surveys: passenger name, pick-up time, pick-up date, pick-up point, main destination, driver name, driver licence number 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, name of the booker and dispatcher name.
On vehicles, hackney carriages are held to an emissions standard and private hire vehicles to an emissions standard.
North Hertfordshire 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 North Hertfordshire, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in North Hertfordshire 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.
North Hertfordshire 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.
7.7 per cent of the licensed fleet in North Hertfordshire is wheelchair accessible — 8 hackney carriages and 12 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.
North Hertfordshire publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
North Hertfordshire departs from the majority answer on 6 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Requires daily PHV roadworthiness checks: "Yes" here, against "No" for 50 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.
Disability awareness training for hackney drivers: "No" here, against "Yes" for 64 per cent of authorities.
Disability awareness training for PHV drivers: "No" here, against "Yes" for 62 per cent of authorities.
