Winchester licenses 280 vehicles as at 1 April 2024 — 89 hackney carriages and 191 private hire vehicles.
Private hire clearly leads the licensed fleet, so most work arrives pre-booked through a phone line, an app or a web form before any driver moves.
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.
280 driver licences are in force against those 280 vehicles, or 1.00 drivers per vehicle. Most vehicles are effectively single-driver, so utilisation is capped by driver hours rather than by vehicle supply.
Winchester licenses 2.15 taxis and private hire vehicles per 1,000 residents, against a median of 2.62 across the 292 authorities in the same return — 18 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 South East median is 2.22 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.
Winchester 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 both age and emissions standard and private hire vehicles to both age and emissions standard.
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 Winchester, so there is a per-vehicle, per-day record to produce on request.
Before a new driver in Winchester 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, safeguarding training covering child sexual exploitation and county lines is required and disability awareness training is mandatory.
Winchester 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.
16.4 per cent of the licensed fleet in Winchester is wheelchair accessible — 45 hackney carriages and 1 private hire vehicles.
That is a moderate accessible share: servable with notice, but not something to promise on demand at peak.
Winchester publishes a list of designated wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which brings its drivers within section 165 of the Equality Act 2010.
Winchester departs from the majority answer on 4 of the surveyed licensing policies.
Caps hackney carriage licence numbers: "For some (but not all) vehicle types" here, against "No" for 74 per cent of authorities.
Requires daily PHV roadworthiness checks: "Yes" here, against "No" for 50 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.
