Preston survey says taxis must continue to “up their game” in reaction to private hire improvements
- Michael Murphy
- Feb 4, 2021
- 1 min read
A consultation conducted by Preston City Council says that hackney carriage taxis “need to continue to up their game particularly in reaction to private hire vehicle improvements”.
According to the consultation report, based on activity which was conducted between July 2019 and February 2020, hackney carriages in the area only control a quarter of the industry’s trade.
A number of elements informed the consultation, including a driver survey, on street public interviews, rank observations and consultations with key industry stakeholders.
Figures compiled before the pandemic estimate that there’s a 8,245 passenger weekly demand for the service of black taxis, which is almost a third less than four years earlier.
Black taxi numbers are restricted to 187 by the licensing authority, unlike private hire numbers which are not. Private hire numbers are currently at 579, which showed a sharp increase during the year of 2017/18.
Rank observations showed that the taxi rank at station feeder and new Friargate, had the worst parking abuse from private vehicles. This segment of the survey also showed a huge downfall in passengers hailing a taxi via a rank, with some losing up to a fifth of activity pre-COVID.
Public interviews showed that 62% had used licensed hackney carriage taxis in the area during a three month period. It showed that daytime usage of taxis had increased, but night time use had fallen compared to previous years.
The key conclusions of the survey were that there was a reduced demand for hackney carriage vehicles, which had worsened since the growth of the private hire sector.
