GREEN BADGE vs YELLOW BADGE: The London suburban cabbie and why tensions exists when it comes to working central London

London’s black taxi trade runs on two licences that look similar to the public, but operate very differently on the street. All-London taxi drivers carry the green badge, allowing them to ply-for-hire anywhere across the Greater London Authority area. Suburban drivers hold the yellow badge, restricting them to plying-for-hire within one of nine outer-London sectors where they have demonstrated local knowledge.

That distinction matters because “plying-for-hire” is the engine of the black cab model. A green badge driver can work the West End, major train station and hotel ranks, then drift out to residential areas when demand shifts. A yellow badge driver, by design, serves local high streets, stations and night-time economy hotspots in the suburbs, often where there is less consistent passing trade and fewer large ranks. TfL’s own material frames yellow badge holders as suburban specialists, rather than a lighter version of the all-London licence.

The flashpoint comes when the conversation turns from ranks and flag-downs to pre-booked work. Taxis can take pre-bookings without becoming private hire, and London policy discussions have long recognised that the boundary between “ply-for-hire” and “pre-booked” is part of the wider regulatory grey area of discussion in the capital.

For suburban drivers, the black-and-white rule is that they must not ply-for-hire outside the suburban sectors they are licensed for. That is the line TfL draws in its driver guidance, and it is the safeguard that stops a suburban licence becoming an informal “nearly green” badge when demand is high on the more centrally located streets.

Pre-booked or app work, however, raises a different question: if a job is genuinely booked in advance, is it still “out-of-area” work in the same way a rank pick-up would be? TfL’s cross-border hiring proposals have previously stated that all London-licensed drivers can accept pre-bookings for journeys that start and finish outside the area in which they are licensed to ply-for-hire, provided the driver is in their licensed area when they accept the booking.

In practice, a suburban driver may drop a fare near a boundary or into central London, then face a long empty run back to sector. However, taking certain pre-booked central “return” jobs do cut dead mileage, reduce to urge to cruise, and improve earnings consistency without turning suburban taxis into opportunistic rank competitors.

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So why do some green badge drivers push back hard? The first objection is market protection, bluntly. Green badge holders invest years in the full Knowledge, and the green badge’s value is tied to unrestricted access to the city’s most lucrative demand centres. If suburban drivers can service pre-booked work, or the even more contentious immediate booking requests from taxi apps, beyond their sectors, some opponents argue it chips away at the premium attached to the all-London qualification, even if the jobs are technically booked.

The second concern is enforcement reality. On a busy kerbside, a pre-booked collection can look exactly like an illegal pick-up. If the system relies on the driver’s word and a phone screen, it can become difficult for drivers and compliance teams to tell the difference between a lawful booking and a convenient story after the fact.

The third issue is network design. Suburban taxis exist because London is not one uniform market. Outer London needs cabs that understand local routes, local ranks, and local customer habits, while central London has a different pattern of demand and congestion. If too many yellow badge drivers chase pre-booked work that pulls them away from their home sectors, suburban coverage can thin out, leaving residents more reliant on private hire for short, local journeys.

In the bigger ecosystem, both badges are doing different jobs for the same brand. Green badge taxis provide the capital-wide, rank-based backbone that tourists, business travellers and late-night passengers rely on. Yellow badge drivers help keep the suburban promise credible: that you can still find a licensed cab at a local station or town centre without needing an app. TfL’s description of yellow badge holders as specialists reflects that role in the network, even if it is less visible to central London regulars.

Whether suburban drivers picking up pre-booked, out-of-area work is acceptable comes down to how tightly it is defined. If it is framed as a limited, verifiable exception to reduce empty running and improve suburban driver viability, it can be argued as compatible with the two-badge system. If it becomes a loophole that effectively lets yellow badges operate like green badges where the better money is, the argument from green badge drivers is strong: it undermines the licence structure that TfL itself relies on to manage standards and geography.