Delving back through bus licencing laws a fe years ago unravelled some intersting cases, especilly in the days when buses were licenced as Hackney and stage carriages. A couple of cases I've been personally involved with found that it is the intended use of the vehicle that counted.
One was a rail replacement bus service in Manchester, buses were drafted in from London, driven by office staff with the appropriate licence rather than full-time bus drivers who, by then, had run out of hour. The DVLA or whatever they were called in those days were involved when they found what had happened. Ho ho, no tachos fitted or used. London to Manchester is bout 200 miles, 5 or 6 hours drive in a double decker. It was deemed that the buses were going to be used on local bus services as most rail replacements are these days, drivers following a timetable. Therefore the final use was local bus.
Another was when I got nicked for driving a small coach in a bus lane in Northampton in 1974. Corporation buses used it, Unite Counties did, as did National Express, but not the local coach company I worked for. It went to court 5 times IIRC, representing myself. Mags found that I was going empty to collect college students so couldn't got down that road. I argued that corporation buses wet empty along that road to and from their depot. Another adjournment and they found that had I been working a regular service I could have used that road. But my students were not paying separate fares, the college was paying for it as a private hire, I couldn't use it, fine £10. It is the ultimate use tat counts.
I'd suggest that the same principle would be applied to taxis and PH operating out of area on the off-chance may well invalidate insurance. Different if the journey is pre-booked.
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