Taxis are an invaluable British institution, with 231,000 of them in England and Wales alone. Too many shopping bags to cart home? Call a taxi. Need to get back after a night out but you’ve had too much alcohol to drive? Get in touch with your local company. Can’t rely on the hit and miss bus service to get you where you need to go? Then you know where to turn. Any time that you need a reliable lift, a sympathetic listening ear, and an expert knowledge of the area, your local taxi firm are the everyday heroes you’re searching for.
That being said, not all services are created equal, and it seems that certain areas suffer from a dearth of reliable drivers to get you safely from A to B. According to an interesting infographic from taxi for sale retailers Cab Direct, there are actually some significant disparities between the availability of cars in a number of major UK cities, especially with regards to the proportion of wheelchair accessible vehicles trawling the streets.
Let’s take a look at some rather shocking statistics…
The Best of the Best and the Worst of the Worst
When it comes to getting a taxi quickly, it helps to have a number of professional firms available to choose from, preferably with a significant amount of cars between them.
If you fancy a journey to the capital for a spot of sightseeing, this certainly shouldn’t be a problem, for the statistics show that London is the best place in the country to get a taxi, with one car for every 107 people. This means a quick, reliable, and efficient service, and a healthy amount of competition to keep taxi companies on their toes.
If you live in Swansea, the reality is rather different. Should you find yourself in the second largest city in Wales, there will be only one taxi for every 439 people, meaning that you may have a little longer to wait before a car can be dispatched. Better to get the bus, maybe?
The Most Accessible Cities in England and Wales
Should you find yourself in need of a wheelchair accessible vehicle, then it’s Darlington and Oldham that you’ll want to avoid, with the former offering only one suitable car per 11,694 people.
Liverpool, on the other hand, will be much more pleasant for you to visit, with the highest number of suitable vehicles for the physically impaired of any city in the UK (one for every 304 people).
So, the next time that you’re in Swansea or Darlington and need a taxi, be warned: you might just be better taking the bus instead.
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