FARES, FINANCE AND FEWER DRIVERS: Trends continue in 2025, but positive offshoots developing for London’s black taxi trade

If 2025 has taught the London taxi trade anything, it is that “steady” is not a strategy. The year has been a mix of policy churn, tech pressure, and the daily grind of keeping wheels turning while the rulebook keeps getting extra pages. Some of the biggest stories were not about shiny new ideas, but about basics: how many drivers are left and how they afford the kit.

The numbers did a lot of the talking as you would expect given years of concern around back cab driver numbers. TfL licensing data tracked through the year showed licensed taxi driver and vehicle totals continuing their long slide, while private hire kept adding bodies and metal. By early September, London had 16,484 licensed taxi drivers and 14,243 licensed taxis, while private hire sat at 105,700 driver licences and 96,483 vehicles. That gap in scale dictates what the public sees at the kerb and what headlines get written when someone decides to declare the black cab “finished”.

However, against that backdrop, 2025 also delivered optimism and light at the end of the tunnel. TfL used the 160th anniversary of the Knowledge to point to applications rising from 440 in 2022 to 742 by the end of November 2025. TfL also said average completion time fell from 5.25 years in 2020 to around three years in 2025, helped by changes such as reducing the gap between appearances. There is still nothing “easy” about the Knowledge, but the system is clearly being tuned to stop candidates ageing a decade between callbacks.

The LTDA leaned into the same message from a different angle: sell the job properly. Their careers show appearance at Olympia produced 598 requests for more information in 48 hours, framed as potential new Knowledge students. It was the sort of old-fashioned recruiting that the trade has sometimes avoided, perhaps because it feels odd having to advertise a profession that used to be a rite of passage for anyone who fancied being their own boss. It turns out people still want independence. They just need it explained in 2025 language.

While TfL talked about supporting the sector, the row over its Taxi and Private Hire Action Plan 2025 showed little in the way of actual tangible support. The LTDA labelled it a “missed opportunity”, arguing it recycled familiar lines about “working with” the trade without offering the sort of firm actions, timelines, and funding hooks drivers actually need. TfL’s plan might read nicely in an office, but 2025 was full of reminders that the trade now needs to measure policy by what changes on the street, not by what sits in a PDF.

TfL’s April 2025 fare changes and the lead-up to them carried the usual balancing act: driver costs versus passenger tolerance. The minimum fare increased by 40p to £4.20, tariffs 1 to 3 up by 5.05%, and a mix of tweaks around Heathrow charges, including the pick-up extra reduced to £1.60 while terminal drop-off moved to £6.00 to reflect Heathrow’s own fees. Later in the year, TfL launched another tariff consultation, this time to arrive in Spring 2026, tied to a Cost Index showing costs and earnings up 4%, with attention again on airport-related charging, including London City Airport.

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The biggest “everyday” cost story remained the shift to cleaner vehicles, and, more specifically, who pays for it. The LTDA pushed the issue hard, including surveying drivers about what funding would actually tempt upgrades, while highlighting finance rates “hovering around” 10% to 11%. That is not a niche complaint. It is the difference between replacing a cab and running something into the ground because the numbers do not work.

At the same time, the trade looked beyond London for working examples. TaxiPoint reported senior voices pointing to Greater Manchester’s hackney carriage support scheme as a practical template for helping drivers through the move to zero emission vehicles, with early signals that something similar could be explored in the capital.

Not every emissions story was about buying new. Right at the end of the year, TfL confirmed Euro 5 TX4 taxis fitted with an approved retrofit exhaust system could keep working for an extra three years, aligning their maximum age limit with Euro 6 vehicles, up to 15 years. TfL said the HJS system passed independent emissions testing and a 10,000-mile durability trial. For drivers staring at the cliff edge of a forced vehicle change, this may provide vital breathing space.

Enforcement also had a busy year, and not just in the way drivers moan about at tea stops. TfL figures released via FOI covered 36,382 inspections from 1 January to 13 September 2025, with 4.91% requiring remedial action. The faults cited were the unglamorous stuff: lights, tyres, MOT status, plus more serious cases involving hire and reward insurance and licensing issues. The point is not that the sector is riddled with bad drivers. The point is that in a market this competitive, everyone gets judged by the weakest examples, and enforcement becomes a headline generator whether the trade likes it or not.

Technology in 2025 was less about “apps exist” and more about buy-outs and new entrants trying to gather unique market space offerings. Driver-led platforms like Jump and blackcab.com pitching no-commission models, essentially trying to reverse the usual logic where the driver funds the platform’s growth.

But apps also brought for awkwardness questions back to the surface. The Mayor’s office acknowledged a lack of legal clarity around when a taxi is deemed “hired” when booked via an app, and pointed out that taxi app companies are not themselves licensed or directly regulated by TfL in the way private hire operators are. In plain terms, the cab and the driver are regulated, the meter is regulated, but the digital middle bit sits in a grey zone.

Road space politics never took the year off either. Oxford Street pedestrianisation plans prompted the Mayor to confirm TfL was looking at how buses, taxis and private hire vehicles could still provide access close to the area. The detail will sit in consultations and drawings set for the new year. A great positive development from the year however included the re-introduction of taxis through Bank Junction signalling a changing in how local councils view black cabs within the wider transport model.

Finally, the big future-word of 2025 was “driverless”, and it arrived with less science fiction and more firm deadlines for its arrival in 2026. The Mayor pledged to work with the industry and unions to minimise the impact of automated vehicles, noting there are not yet automated passenger services operating in London and that national rules are still incomplete. At the same time, the private hire world kept pushing: Uber confirmed a partnership with Baidu’s Apollo Go aimed at a London pilot in the first half of 2026, and Lyft also talked up deploying Baidu technology via the Freenow platform, again pending approvals.

So the 2025 round-up lands on a blunt conclusion. The London taxi trade spent the year juggling decline in numbers, a recruitment rebuild, fare pressure, the cost of cleaner vehicles, and a regulatory landscape that struggles to keep pace with app booking and autonomous ambitions. There were wins, like the retrofit extension and signs of a healthier Knowledge pipeline, but none of it cancels out the wider trends.

If 2026 is going to look different, it will not happen because someone says “we will work with you”. It will happen when policy, funding, and enforcement priorities start matching the on-street reality again.