South Kesteven licenses 350 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 306 hackney carriages and 44 private hire vehicles.
This is an unusually hackney-weighted area. Rank and hail work dominates, and a dispatch system here has to accept that a driver's most profitable hour may be one where the operator sent them nothing.
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.
355 driver licences are in force against those 350 vehicles, or 1.01 drivers per vehicle. Most vehicles are effectively single-driver, so utilisation is capped by driver hours rather than by vehicle supply.
South Kesteven licenses 2.43 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 8 per cent below the national midpoint.
Licensed supply is close to the national midpoint, which usually means demand and supply trade places by time of day rather than one dominating.
Against its own region the fleet is denser than typical: the East Midlands median is 2.13 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.
South Kesteven 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.
South Kesteven 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.
Before a new driver in South Kesteven 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.
South Kesteven 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.
0.9 per cent of the licensed fleet in South Kesteven is wheelchair accessible — 1 hackney carriages and 2 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.
South Kesteven publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
South Kesteven departs from the majority answer on 5 of the surveyed licensing policies.
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.
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.
