What Somerset’s 10 Percent Taxi Fare Rise Means for Rural Passengers and Drivers

Taxi fares across Somerset are set to rise by 10 per cent under new council proposals, and drivers will be able to charge an extra fee of up to £10 for pre-booked trips, in a move officials say is designed to keep rural taxi services running as fuel and living costs climb. The changes affect the maximum fares hackney carriages can legally charge, meaning individual drivers can still choose to charge less, but the ceiling on what they can ask for is rising for the first time after standing unchanged from May 2024.

Somerset Council opened the proposals to public objection on 29 June, and the window closes on 19 July 2026. If nobody formally objects, the new fare table takes effect automatically without a further vote.

What the fare rise actually costs

Under the proposed standard tariff, the maximum charge for the first mile of a journey rises from £4.60 to £5.06. Every additional tenth of a mile after that goes up from 30p to 33p, so a longer cross-county journey adds up quickly under the new ceiling. Waiting time charges rise too, from £1.00 to £1.10 for every two minutes a driver is kept waiting.

Not everything is changing. The council confirmed that existing surcharges for evenings, weekends, public holidays and larger groups will stay the same, as will the maximum £100 soiling charge drivers can levy if a passenger is sick or damages the vehicle. Drivers will also still be able to recover toll charges and clean air zone fees where a journey passes through one, on top of the metered fare.

A new fee aimed at rural pick-ups

The most unusual element of the package is a new discretionary booking fee of up to £10 for pre-booked journeys, which does not exist under the current fare table. Somerset Council said the fee is specifically designed to make rural bookings worth a driver’s time, as a taxi in a village or outlying town can have to travel a considerable distance just to reach a passenger before the meter on the actual journey even starts.

That dead mileage problem has long been cited by rural taxi operators as a reason services thin out away from town centres, leaving elderly residents and those without their own transport with fewer options, longer waits, or no local service at all. By allowing drivers to charge for that travel time on a pre-booked job, the council is betting that more operators will be willing to accept rural fares rather than concentrate on shorter, more profitable town runs.

Why the council is moving now

Somerset Council said the changes seek to balance rising costs faced by drivers against the need to keep fares affordable for passengers. A council survey of licensed hackney carriage owners found 59 per cent supported some form of price increase, with drivers citing fuel prices, vehicle finance and insurance costs that have all climbed in the two years after the fares were last reviewed.

Cllr Federica Smith-Roberts, Somerset Council’s lead member for communities, said: “The proposed changes seek to balance the rising costs faced by drivers with the need to keep fares fair for passengers.” She added that the council is legally required to review any public objections before making a final decision, and that “if no objections are received, the proposed table of fares will take effect automatically.”

Somerset is not alone in raising fares this summer. West Suffolk Council has separately proposed increases that would add 35p to a standard two-mile daytime trip, taking the total to £8.35, prompting warnings from some passenger groups about a tipping point where rising fares push people away from taxis altogether and onto buses, community transport, or simply travelling less. Under the Local Government Act 1976, a council setting a maximum fare table must run a formal objection period before any change can be confirmed, which is why Somerset’s proposals remain provisional until 19 July.

Somerset’s decision to keep the evening, weekend and public holiday surcharges frozen while raising the base tariff is a departure from some neighbouring authorities, which have opted to raise every element of the fare table by the same percentage. By holding the surcharges steady, the council appears to be aiming the biggest increase at the standard daytime and weekday fares that make up most journeys, rather than spreading the rise evenly across every type of trip a passenger might book.

The dead mileage problem the new booking fee is designed to address is well known in the taxi trade nationally, not just in Somerset. Trade bodies representing rural hackney carriage drivers have argued for years that a flat per-mile rate set for urban journeys makes little financial sense once a driver has to cover ten miles or more just to reach a pick-up point in a sparsely populated area, before the metered fare for the actual trip even begins. A discretionary booking fee, rather than a fixed one, gives drivers room to apply it only where the distance justifies it, while leaving town-centre bookings unaffected.

What passengers and drivers should know

The rates being proposed are a legal ceiling rather than a fixed price, so any individual driver or firm can still choose to charge less than the maximum. Passengers who use metered hackney carriages regularly, especially for longer or rural journeys, should expect their typical fare to rise once the new table takes effect, whether that is automatically after 19 July or following a formal decision if objections are received.

Anyone wishing to object to the proposed table of fares can do so through Somerset Council’s online Citizen Space consultation before the window closes. Objections need to be submitted in writing and will be considered by the council before any final fare table is confirmed. Passengers who book a taxi in advance in a rural part of the county should also ask upfront whether a booking fee will apply. The new charge is discretionary rather than automatic, and firms are not obliged to apply it to every pre-booked job.

Drivers who want to check what they are entitled to charge before the change takes effect can currently rely on the existing table, published on Somerset Council’s licensing pages, which remains the legal maximum until any new table is confirmed. Once the revised rates are in force, taxis are required to display the current tariff card inside the vehicle, so passengers can check the fare being applied against the approved maximum at any point in a journey. Anyone who believes they have been overcharged beyond the legal ceiling can report the driver or operator to Somerset Council’s licensing team, which has powers to investigate and, in serious or repeated cases, suspend a licence.

The proposals sit against a backdrop of wider concern about the future of rural bus and community transport funding, which has left some villages more dependent on taxis for essential journeys such as hospital appointments and school runs than they were a decade ago. Somerset’s rural geography, spanning the Levels, Exmoor and the Mendip Hills, means journey distances between settlements can be considerably longer than in more compact urban authorities, a factor the council cited directly when explaining why the booking fee was designed around dead mileage rather than simply raising the standard mile rate further.

Sources:

• Somerset Council proposes 10 per cent hike in maximum taxi fares to help rural drivers, PHTM, 8 July 2026: https://www.phtm.co.uk/news/9028/phtm-news/somerset-council-proposes-10-per-cent-hike-in-maximum-taxi-fares-to-help-rural-drivers
• Somerset Council proposes 10% rise to taxi fares and unique new £10 booking fee option to cover dead mileage, TaxiPoint: https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/somerset-council-proposes-10-rise-to-taxi-fares-and-unique-new-10-booking-fee-option-to-cover-dead
• West Suffolk taxi fares set to rise despite tipping point warnings for customers, PHTM: https://www.phtm.co.uk/news/9024/phtm-news/west-suffolk-taxi-fares-set-to-rise-despite-tipping-point-warnings-for-customers