Free tool · for operators
How many taxi drivers do I need?
Drivers on the road in your busiest hour are roughly the jobs in that hour × the job cycle in hours ÷ the utilisation you accept. Twenty jobs an hour with a 35-minute cycle at 70% utilisation needs about 17 drivers live. The calculator then turns your service hours and shift pattern into the roster you need to recruit.
Your demand
Size the fleet from your busiest hour
The figures shown are examples. Use your own booking data, or your best estimate before launch.
17
20 jobs × 0.58 hours ÷ 70% = 16.7
The roster assumes demand falls in a straight line from your peak to your quietest hours; real days have two or three peaks, so check it against an hour-by-hour count once you have bookings. A tighter pickup promise needs lower utilisation, which means more drivers earning less per hour.
How it works
From your busiest hour to a roster
Start with the busiest hour, because that is where a thin fleet fails: pickups get late and passengers go elsewhere. The job cycle is the whole time a driver is tied up by one job, from accepting it to being free again: the drive to the pick-up, the trip and the drop-off. Utilisation is the share of logged-in time drivers spend on jobs; dividing by it leaves enough free drivers near each new booking.
The roster follows from the hours you run. The calculator assumes demand slides from your peak down to your quietest hour, multiplies the average drivers needed by your service hours to get driver-hours a week, divides by the hours one driver covers on your shift pattern and adds cover for leave and sickness.
The trade-off to choose deliberately: a fast pickup promise forces low utilisation, and low utilisation means each driver earns less per hour logged in, so drivers log off. The method comes from our Ride-Hailing Startup Launch Roadmap; for finding the drivers, see how to recruit taxi drivers.
FAQ
Fleet size questions
How many drivers do I need for a taxi business?
Work it out from your busiest hour: jobs in that hour × job cycle in hours ÷ the utilisation you accept gives the drivers you need live at peak. Then cover your service hours with shifts, and recruit against drivers live at peak, not total sign-ups.
What utilisation should a taxi fleet aim for?
It is a choice, not a benchmark. Higher utilisation means busier drivers who earn more per hour but slower pickups; lower utilisation means quick pickups and quieter drivers. Pick the side that matches your promise to passengers and check it against how long drivers stay.
How many drivers per taxi do I need?
As many as it takes to cover the hours you want each car on the road. A car running 18 hours a day, seven days a week, is 126 hours a week; on 10-hour shifts five days a week that is about two and a half drivers per car before cover for leave.
How do I count jobs in the busiest hour before launch?
Use your best evidence: bookings from an existing phone line, contract runs you have agreed, or a corridor you plan to serve at commuter hours. Start small, own one corridor and grow the fleet as the hour-by-hour bookings show where the peaks are.
Run these numbers inside your dispatch system
TaxiDex runs bookings, drivers, the live map, fares and payments in one console. See it with your own fleet in a 30-minute demo.
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