Managing the ULEZ charge

To help clear  London's air, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year, except Christmas Day (25 December). The zone operates across all London boroughs, and does not include the M25.

Map courtesy of TFL

If your vehicle doesn't meet the ULEZ emissions standards and isn't exempt, you need to pay a £12.50 daily charge to drive within the zone. This applies to cars, motorcycles, vans and specialist vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes) and minibuses (up to and including 5 tonnes).

Transport for London (TFL) has advised that lorries, vans or specialist heavy vehicles (all over 3.5 tonnes) and buses, minibuses and coaches (all over 5 tonnes) do not need to pay the ULEZ charge. They will need to pay the LEZ charge if they do not meet the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) emissions standard.

Exemptions

London-licensed taxis are exempt from ULEZ charges. Older, more polluting taxis are subject to a 12 year age limit, with newer, cleaner taxis extended to 15 years.

All newly licensed taxis must be zero emission capable (ZEC) vehicles.

Recommendations to avoid your business losing revenue :

If you increase your prices on minicabit, you will likely push hard won customers onto other platforms like Uber (as happened when hailo hiked up their charges, see here). Therefore, we recommend:

• Educate your current and new drivers to take on ULEZ-exempt cars
• Prioritise assigning minicabit jobs to ULEZ-exempt cars
• Assign minicabit jobs to those of your drivers who are already scheduled to do multiple jobs of yours in the ULEZ area since they can more easily recover the ULEZ charge if they earn more work in the zone per day

Clearly, the best way to address ULEZ is to upgrade your fleets and invest in vehicles that are compliant.

See here for Heathrow's plans to introduce similar charges for all private hire vehicles: https://your.heathrow.com/vehicleaccess/