Forest of Dean licenses 60 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 6 hackney carriages and 54 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.
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.
61 driver licences are in force against those 60 vehicles, or 1.02 drivers per vehicle. Most vehicles are effectively single-driver, so utilisation is capped by driver hours rather than by vehicle supply.
Forest of Dean licenses 0.68 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 74 per cent below the national midpoint.
Licensed supply is well below the national midpoint. Where vehicles are this scarce a missed pick-up costs more, because the customer has few alternatives and long memories.
Against its own region the fleet is thinner than typical: the South West median is 2.14 per 1,000 residents.
Forest of Dean 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.
Forest of Dean 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 Forest of Dean, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in Forest of Dean 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.
21.7 per cent of the licensed fleet in Forest of Dean is wheelchair accessible — 2 hackney carriages and 11 private hire vehicles.
That is a moderate accessible share: servable with notice, but not something to promise on demand at peak.
Forest of Dean publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Forest of Dean departs from the majority answer on 4 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.
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.
