Wrexham licenses 402 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 19 hackney carriages and 383 private hire vehicles.
Almost the entire licensed fleet is private hire, which may not be hailed or wait on a rank. Every journey has to be pre-booked, so the booking channel and the dispatch system are the business rather than a support function.
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.
507 driver licences are in force against those 402 vehicles, or 1.26 drivers per vehicle. Some vehicles run more than one driver, so shift patterns bear on availability as much as the plate count does.
Wrexham licenses 2.97 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 13 per cent above 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 Wales median is 2.49 per 1,000 residents.
Wrexham requires a licensed private hire operator to record 11 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 and name of the booker.
That is a demanding regime: most of the fields the DfT surveys are mandatory here.
Not required here: dispatcher name.
On vehicles, hackney carriages are held to a maximum vehicle age and private hire vehicles to no age or emissions standard restrictions.
Wrexham 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 Wrexham 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.
7.5 per cent of the licensed fleet in Wrexham is wheelchair accessible — 19 hackney carriages and 11 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.
Wrexham publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Wrexham departs from the majority answer on 7 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Requires daily hackney roadworthiness checks: "No" here, against "Yes" for 51 per cent of authorities.
Hackney English-standard requirement: "Written" here, against "Both" for 50 per cent of authorities.
PHV English-standard requirement: "Written" here, against "Both" for 51 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.
Disability awareness training for hackney drivers: "No" here, against "Yes" for 64 per cent of authorities.
Yes. In the reporting year Wrexham refused 0 operator licence applications, suspended 0 and revoked 1.
