DEFRA have announced changes to the statutory requirement to upload taxi and PH data.

DEFRA’s Taxi and PHV Database Team has today (14/4/20) announced that it will relax the rules on mandatory taxi and PH uploads to the national air quality database.

In their communication to councils, they said:

“Given the current COVID-19 situation, we understand that it may be difficult for your licensing team to upload data to the Taxi and PHV Centralised Database on a weekly basis. Therefore, we are relaxing the weekly data upload requirement to a monthly data upload requirement. We will be monitoring the situation closely and will review this adjusted requirement in three months.

“We expect you to upload the data at least once a month. This is important because the data feeds into the Vehicle Checker which is a live service where drivers will still be able to check whether their vehicles will be charged for entering, or driving within, a Clean Air Zone. Please note that due to the COVID-19 situation, no Clean Air Zone will launch earlier than 1 January 2021."

Any further enquiries can be directed via email to taxiandphvcentralised.database@defra.gov.uk.