‘Uber did us a favour’: Why drivers of London’s black cabs still have a future

Asif tugs at his right cheek as he ponders how to navigate from Holloway Road Station to the Quality Chop House, three kilometres away on Farringdon Road. A dozen fellow students of the Knowledge of London, the gruelling qualification required to drive one of the ­capital’s famous black taxis, watch him squirm under the instructor’s classroom interrogation, with another dozen listening in via a video call. Eventually, he concedes defeat and rejoins the onlooking semicircle.

London’s cabbies have had a hard few years. Ride-hailing platforms such as Uber upended the market, with satnav-equipped drivers who no longer needed to memorise routes. Tighter environmental standards pushed up the cost of vehicles. Councils blocked favourite cut-throughs. Over half of London’s roads now have 20 miles per hour (32km/h) speed limits. Since 2017, the number of black-cab drivers has fallen from about 25,000 to barely 16,500, according to Transport for London (TFL).

Before picking up their first passengers, all black-cab drivers must pass the Knowledge, a 160-year-old test that involves memorising more than 6000 streets and points of interest within a 10-kilometre radius of Charing Cross. They also need to navigate between them by the most direct route, as mileage helps determine fares. Examiners can make things even harder by insisting on being set down on a specific side of the road or impersonating customers with heavy regional accents.

Surely satnav, augmented with live traffic insights, has made the Knowledge an anachronism? Up to a point. Expert navigation is only part of the purpose of the exam. It also serves to protect access to what is in effect a 371-year-old guild. Students are discouraged from using satnav. “Google Maps is full of errors and often calculates routes which are the quickest,” says Gert Kretov, an instructor at the Knowledge Point School. “We must learn the shortest route.” He estimates that passing the Knowledge costs £10,000 (about $20,600) over two to three years, ­including classes and renting a scooter, the favoured means of sussing out routes.

Another threat to cabbies looms in the rearview mirror: taxis that don’t require a driver at all. From next northern spring, the UK government will allow pilot schemes for autonomous taxis to roam England’s roads without human oversight. This brings the country into line with China and US states including California and Texas, where Tesla and Alphabet’s Waymo division are operating robotaxis.

A fleet of 15 autonomous Ford Mustangs (overseen by safety drivers for now) is already venturing onto London’s roads from the King’s Cross headquarters of Wayve, a British tech company that last year raised more than $US1bn from Japan’s SoftBank and others. On a recent 15-minute demo ride, it drove with a mix of calm and authority, like the best taxi drivers. Wearing a crown of seven cameras, the car was unfazed by pedestrians dawdling near zebra crossings, impatient cyclists jumping red lights or roadworks blocking its path.

For all these challenges, a new generation of drivers is in training: 1166 are currently studying the Knowledge, an increase from the low of 759 students in 2022, according to TFL data. Unlike existing drivers, who tend to be white, this new cohort is more ethnically mixed. Many are Uber drivers seeking higher wages and freedom from the ride-hailing apps. Students complain that the apps can pay as little as £1 a mile [$1.30 per kilometre]; a typical black-cab fare might be five or six times that. “We’re seeing more and more communities realising what the earning potential is,” says Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association.

At the Knowledge Point School on a Tuesday evening in July, Robleh Salah takes a break from studying the large laminated maps that line the walls to explain that his main motivation is ­independence. A former mechanic, he has been studying the Knowledge for three years and is close to finally passing. His schedule is 11am to midnight at the school, four days a week. He drives an Uber on the other three days.

London’s transport authorities seem unsure how to treat taxi drivers. The mayor has set a target that 80 per cent of journeys should be made on foot, by bike or with public transport by 2041 (though that figure has never breached 64 per cent since he announced the goal in 2018). Are taxis to be nurtured as essential public infrastructure or punished like private cars? “Anything on four wheels that isn’t a bus falls into the 20 per cent,” says Elly Baker, chair of the London Assembly’s transport committee. “Taxis, as shared transport (because I think that’s how they should be categorised), I think they’ve got the crappy end of the stick.”

The future of London’s cabbies isn’t entirely black. In a recent simplification of the Knowledge, TFL limited the list of locations to be memorised. Ride-hailing apps have allowed their fares to rise – and they have also introduced new clients to the convenience of taxis. “There’s a whole generation of people, young people, who have never got a bus,” notes Steve McNamara. “Uber did us a favour.” Nowadays, passengers can even book a black-cab ride through Uber.

Drivers are also sceptical that robotaxis will ever be able to navigate central London’s roads, or that passengers will want them. “It will take quite a while for your average Londoner to be comfortable with not having somebody actually there,” reckons Baker. For now, however, the number of licensed cabbies keeps ticking lower.

Edited version of a story that first appeared in The Economist.
©2025 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.