Public demand for cabs has increased several-fold in recent decades, but the recent trend is less encouraging.

Figures recently published show the taxi/PH trade has grown significantly over the last 30 years, but ………

In the 2002 National Survey Trends, the Office of National Statistics show the taxi/PH trade in a very healthy state. In 1975/6 the average person travelled 13 miles in a taxi/PH per year. The latest figures show that in 2002 that has increased to 55 miles per year per person. A very welcomed increase, especially when you consider that bus usage has dropped by a third over the same timescale.

Further analysis show that people average 11 taxi/PH trips per year, compared to only 7 in 1985/6. Each of those trips has also increase by 5% to 4.3 miles (there must be some lucky sod that’s doing all my long ones, because mine average about half of that).

The down side
Whilst these figures make good reading over the long term, it’s worth noting that the stats were even better in the period 1999/2001. Since then the miles per person has fallen 10% from 61 to 55, and the number of trips per year has also slightly decreased.

Lets all hope that this is just a blip and doesn’t turn out to be the trend.

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