Taxi Driver Online

Uber allowed to operate in new place outside of London

https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news ... de-london/

Uber has been awarded a licence to operate for the first time in Wiltshire since the app-based taxi service was launched in the UK in 2012.

The committee heard that, in the view of council officers, numbers are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Previously, the committee was told that drivers have left the profession to take up supermarket delivery jobs - with guaranteed pay and more sociable hours.

Of the 841 licensed vehicles in Wiltshire, 478 (57 per cent) are hackney carriages, meaning they can be 'hailed', while 363 or 43 per cent are private hire vehicles, which have to be pre-booked. The move coincides with a dramatic drop in the number of taxis and drivers licensed by Wiltshire Council since the pandemic.

The council's Environment Select Committee heard that in 2025 the number of licensed taxi drivers fell by nine per cent - that's 79 drivers.

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of licensed drivers has fallen by more than a fifth (21 per cent) - 218 drivers.

The council had previously resisted issuing Uber an operating licence. However, there was no legislation to stop Uber drivers licensed elsewhere from working in the county, and this was "generating a lot of complaints and bad feeling within the trade."

In a report to councillors, the council's head of service passenger transport said: "Falling vehicle numbers has a significant impact on our Passenger Transport Unit as taxis are a vital element of the school transport solution.

"Uber will drive forward levels of service within the county and provide a better service to the public."

The committee was also told about the measures the council was taking to ensure passenger safety.

Penalty points were issued to drivers on 14 occasions as part of the council's internal scheme in November 2025, for breaches of licence policy.

In the same month, one driver had their licence revoked - the council has been approached for further details.

Uber is an American tech platform that allows passengers to book a ride with an app.

The company came to the UK in 2012, initially operating in London before rolling out nationwide.

In the UK, Uber says it has more than 100,000 registered drivers serving five million passengers.

It estimated 25 to 30 per cent of the UK's cabbies are now Uber drivers, based on government statistics.

That doesn't sound like much across presumably 1,000 or so drivers


Hold the front page

On what purely legal basis had the council resisted issuing a licence to Uber?

And I doubt now issuing one will really stop any bad feeling etc. And will just demonstrate that any complaints about cross-border cars were ill-founded, at least (again) on purely legal terms.

(Just thinking about stuff like this at the moment because of Uber's pending application in Fife...)


Again, and on the other hand, that doesn't sound like a relevant licensing consideration either. Uber is either fit and proper, or it isn't

And, obviously, the statement begs the question, where are all the additional drivers coming from?

If they're using cross-border cars already, then giving Uber a local licence will presumably just rearrange the furniture a bit at the local level - local cars currently with local firms going with Uber instead...

At first glance I thought that sounded a tad exaggerated, to say the least, at least in terms of the percentage figure - 30% is pushing 1 in 3 drivers

Thought maybe 'cabbies' just referred to PHDs, or whatever.

But I asked Google how many Uber drivers in UK, and that's essentially what it came up with, and refers to both HC/PH...


In fact, I'd have been just as quick having a look at the actual stats, but can't be bothered now

But I suppose 1 in 4 UK HC or PHV drivers working with Uber can't be far off the mark

I suspect it's a load of old fanny, and the truth is that they have never applied.

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IDFIMH

Maybe those licensed elsewhere will relicense with the local council.

But most new Uber drivers will come from the existing trade, thus no increase.

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IDFIMH

Might even be an understatement, as they have 70,000+ in London.

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IDFIMH

you can't really trust results like that because google uses AI which is easily conned if the sources are Fake news

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Indeed, Edders, and that's why I tagged the quote I used as being written by 'Google AI overview'


And I kind of meant what I said to be read in the context of my endless recent witterings about AI in general, and in particular how some Google results were obviously showing a distorted picture.

So maybe it's a good slave, but a bad master, as people used to say (I suspect that phrase is now banned as being policitally incorrect, alluding as it does to the power dynamic in play under slavery ).

So to that extent it was just a comparison with what's quoted in the press article, and what I was kind of thinking instinctively about the numbers

Anyway, I had a quick look at the last DfT stats, and they say 381,000 total drivers in England and Wales. And 31,000 so in Scotland. And although the DfT numbers are maybe a bit more reliable than twenty years ago, I still wouldn't fully trust them - probably an element of double counting with a lot of badges and the like...

But although both sets of stats are a bit out of date now, I suppose 400,000 or so is fair enough as a ball park figure. To that extent, and because there's no obvious reason to doubt the 100,000 figure for total Uber drivers, then 25% (or 1 in 4) is probably reliable enough as a ball park figure...

(And, of course, 100,000 is obviously a ball park figure anyway...)

And, Edders, since the *UK* should strictly speaking include Northern Ireland, I asked Google for numbers there. And I'm totally convinced the answer is total BS

Although can't be bothered looking into it...


And, in fact, the Facebook 'reel' that Google AI links to as a source has the narrator stating different figures. And the figures are actually for vehicles, not drivers. The reel also has a written narrative attached, which says driver numbers actually down one quarter

And in fact, look at the statement above closely, and it veers quickly from *driver* numbers to *vehicles*, without pointing that out or properly examining that

And the reel is narrated by the NI equivalent of Steve Wright MBE, so it's a recruitment pitch to a large extent. And we all remember what Steve Wright MBE said about numbers during Covid

And the reel obviously originates from a period a lot closer to Covid than the present day, so to that extent the stats are meaningless, even if they were genuine

But, guess what, there's not even an obvious date attached to the Facebook reel, which is a fundamental piece of data for any analysis like this, but, I mean, in the days of TikTok and the like, stuff likes dates maybe don't matter so much

But, in a nutshell, it's all BS and utter pish

https://www.facebook.com/reel/24761881883461174