What’s the difference between a taxi, hackney carriage and private hire vehicle?
A hackney carriage can pick up passengers from the streets, either at a taxi rank or by being hailed elsewhere. A private hire vehicle (PHV) can only undertake work that has been pre-booked, usually by telephone. In the bigger towns and cities hackney carriages tend to be London-style ‘black cabs’, but they can also be standard saloon cars such as the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra, particularly in smaller towns and more rural areas. However, PHVs are almost always saloon cars. But an increasing trend for both hackney carriages and PHVs is the use of people carriers, minibuses and van-conversions, but these are always limited to seating eight passengers. The term ‘taxi’ is often used instead of hackney carriage, particularly in government documents and legislation. However, some local authorities use the term loosely to refer to both hackney carriages and PHVs. In everyday use the word taxi is also used in this way, and this is also common in press reporting, hence there is often some
