Welsh ministers are proposing to introduce new legislation, the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Bill to modernise the industry and help ensure that Wales’ taxi and private hire vehicle services are safer, fairer, and greener. Proposals for the bill will affect the use of information by local authorities, taxi drivers and private vehicle hire operators.
The team currently have a wealth of subject-matter expertise, and rich policy understanding but they want to ensure they approach the project in a user-centred way, by supplementing this information with the needs of passengers and drivers.
We are working with Welsh Government to scope a user-centred discovery project, which focuses on understanding the problems passengers face and gain insight into their behaviours, attitudes and needs.
Research aims
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Understand passenger attitudes, behaviours, and awareness of safety when travelling by taxi and private hire vehicles.
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Identify what passenger safety problems exist within the current taxi and private hire vehicle experience.
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Evaluate whether improved information sharing could improve the safety of passengers.
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Understand taxi and private hire vehicle driver’s attitudes, behaviours, and awareness of passenger safety.
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Identify opportunities to improve passenger safety and confidence in travelling in taxis and private hire vehicles.
What we’ve done so far
To begin the project and to help us gain an understanding of the topic, we undertook desk research, reviewing a range of papers, articles, meeting notes and other literature. This broad knowledge base also helped us to define the scope of the discovery and plan for the next phase of user research.
Our user research team
Next steps
As we move into primary research, we want to ensure a range of responses from a diverse range of participants with differing access needs. This will include interviews with:
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passengers (prioritising seldom heard voices, for example people from black and ethnic minority groups, people with accessibility needs, children and many more)
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taxi/private hire vehicle drivers and operators
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local authority licensing officers
We will also be visiting places that people travel in taxis to learn more from their real contexts.
To ensure we hear from people in different areas of Wales, we are planning to visit Bangor, Llandrindod Wells and Cardiff and run video interviews with participants from other areas.