Reigate & Banstead Taxi Knowledge Test

The Reigate and Banstead taxi knowledge test is short, but it is strict. The private hire version has only 20 questions, and you need 18 of them right. That leaves room for two mistakes in the whole paper. This guide explains both of the council's tests, the rules behind the questions, how to use a map well under time pressure, and how to practise.

Reigate & Banstead Borough Council covers Reigate, Redhill, Banstead, Horley, Tadworth and the villages around them in east Surrey. It licenses hackney carriage (taxi) and private hire drivers under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, and must be satisfied that each driver is "fit and proper", which means safe and trustworthy enough to carry the public. The knowledge test is part of that check. UK Driver Licence Prep is an independent study aid with no link to the council. The facts below come from the council's knowledge test pages, its fees table for 2026/27 and its private hire policy, checked in October 2026. Always confirm on the council's knowledge test page before you book.

The Reigate and Banstead taxi knowledge tests at a glance

	Private hire knowledge test	Hackney carriage knowledge test
Where	Online, from a place you choose	Written, at the Town Hall, Reigate, supervised by an officer
Questions	20 multiple choice, 5 in each of 4 sections	Not published
Time	45 minutes	1 hour
Pass mark	90% (18 out of 20)	Not published
Materials	Map book or online map allowed for the route section	None allowed
Fee (2026/27)	£51 for each attempt	£74 for each attempt
Retakes	No limit; book again and pay the full fee	Book again and pay the fee
Results	On screen when you finish	Emailed within 7 days, with the sections you failed

The council does not publish a pass mark for each private hire section, so in theory you could drop two questions in one section and still pass. In practice, treat every section as one you must master. If two of your weak answers land in the same section on the day, you are already at the limit.

Key fact: A 90% pass mark puts this test level with the strictest council papers we cover, such as Bristol's hackney carriage test. A third mistake anywhere is a fail.

Inside the private hire knowledge test

The council describes four sections of five questions. The online test shows one question at a time. You can move back and forward and change answers until you press finish. After that the result appears and nothing can be changed.

Section 1: navigating the area and planning routes

These questions ask you to find a destination and choose a route. The council's sample paper shows the style: which main road a pub is on, which school is on a named road, which motorway junction serves a town, and which of four written routes is the shortest between two places. You may use a map book or an online mapping tool for this section, so the skill being tested is using a map quickly and accurately, not memory alone. Practise this in Reigate & Banstead route planning.

Section 2: basic maths for money and fares

Everyday sums: change from a note, a fare from a price per mile, adding extras, or deciding which fare to charge. One rule from the council's policy matters here. If the operator agreed a fare with the passenger in advance, you must not charge more than that agreed fare, even if a meter in the car shows a higher figure. Drill these in fares and numeracy.

Section 3: private hire policy, conditions and the convictions policy

Questions from the council's Private Hire Vehicles, Drivers and Operators Policy and Conditions (October 2024) and its Convictions Policy. These are the most local questions, and they are where people lose marks because they assume one council's rules apply everywhere. The tables below summarise the conditions most worth learning. Practise them in Reigate & Banstead local policy.

Section 4: the Highway Code

The council names the official Highway Code (2022 edition). It does not supply a copy. Expect the rules every driver should know, plus the 2022 changes on the hierarchy of road users. Our guide to the Highway Code for taxi drivers lists the rules council tests ask about most, and you can drill them in Highway Code practice. The free text of the Code is on GOV.UK.

Exam tip: With five questions per section, a single gap in your knowledge, such as the reporting deadlines, can cost you two or three marks at once. Spread your revision across all four sections rather than polishing the one you like.

Booking rules for the online test

The online format has its own rules, and breaking them costs you the fee.

1. Apply for the licence first. You can only book the knowledge test once you have applied to the council for a private hire driver licence.
2. Book at least 48 hours ahead. Booking for a test closes 48 hours before it starts.
3. Watch your email the day before. The test link is emailed before midday on the day before. If it has not arrived, check your junk folder, then call the licensing team.
4. Start at 10am. The link only works from 10am on the test day.
5. Be ready at 10am, not 10.10. No extra time is given for a late start or a connection problem. Your 45 minutes run from the start time.
6. Changes need notice. To change the date, contact licensing more than 48 hours before the test. Refunds are only given in exceptional cases, with evidence such as a hospital letter.

Before 10am, have your map book open at the index, a browser tab with an online map ready, a pen and paper for sums, and a quiet room with a reliable connection.

Using a map well when you only have 45 minutes

Being allowed a map sounds like an easy win. It is not, because time runs out. Forty-five minutes for 20 questions is about two and a quarter minutes each. If you spend eight minutes tracing one route, the rest of the paper suffers.

A method that works:

1. Answer sections 2, 3 and 4 first. They need no map. Aim to finish all 15 in about 20 minutes.
2. Then do the five route questions with the time that is left, about five minutes each.
3. For "which road is this on" questions, search the place name in an online map, then check the road number on the map itself, not only in the search result.
4. For "shortest route" questions, read all four options before you look at the map. They usually differ in only one or two steps. Find the step where they split, and check just that part of the map.
5. Check direction words. An option that says "north on the A23" when the destination is south is wrong, however good the rest looks.

The council publishes an example map reading guide based on the Surrey street atlas. It covers compass points, the symbol key and how to follow a road across pages. Download it, with the sample paper, from the council's private hire knowledge test explained page. Work through both before you book.

Exam tip: Online maps often suggest the quickest route. The test asks for the shortest. When two options are close, count the roads and look at the distance, not the predicted time.

Reigate and Banstead rules you must know

These come from the council's private hire policy and conditions (October 2024) and its application pages. Read the full documents yourself: the test can ask about anything in them.

Who can apply

• Minimum age 21.
• A UK or equivalent driving licence held for at least 12 months.
• DVLA Group 2 medical standard on the council's own medical form, completed by a GP at your registered practice. After 45 you provide a medical every three years, and every year after 65.
• Enhanced DBS check, with the DBS Update Service joined within 30 days so the council can check every six months.
• A council-approved online safeguarding course, completed before you apply.
• Know which operator you will work for.

Reporting deadlines for drivers

Event	Deadline
Arrest for any matter, charged or not	3 working days, in writing
Endorsement, fixed penalty, caution, conviction or other criminal proceedings	5 working days, in writing
Change of address	5 working days, in writing
Produce your licence when an officer or police officer asks	Within 5 days (1976 Act s.53)
Return badges when the licence expires, is revoked or suspended	Straight away

Conduct and passengers

• Be clean and respectable in dress and behave in a civil and orderly way. The council's dress code advises smart clothing such as a collared shirt or blouse, smart trousers or tailored shorts and a dark jacket or jersey.
• Help with luggage, and do not eat or drink in the vehicle.
• Play the radio only with the hirer's consent, and never loud enough to annoy anyone.
• Carry no more passengers than the licence allows, and no extra person without the hirer's consent.
• Search the vehicle after every hiring. Found property is dealt with through your operator's procedure.
• Give a written receipt if the hirer asks.
• Carry a disabled passenger's assistance dog free of charge and let it stay with them, unless you hold a medical exemption and display the notice.
• Do not lengthen a journey in distance or time without good reason (1976 Act s.69).

Vehicles

Rule	Detail
Age when first licensed	Under 7 years from first registration
Relicensing	Under 7 years; older "exceptional" vehicles judged on merit; purpose-built wheelchair accessible vehicles under 9 years
Inspections, 3 to 6 years old	Two a year at the Earlswood Depot, 6 months apart
Inspections, 7 years and over	Three a year, 4 months apart
Accident affecting safety or appearance	Report within 72 hours
Insurance	Hire and reward cover, shown on request

Key fact: Arrests have the shortest deadline: 3 working days, even if you are never charged. Convictions and endorsements are 5 working days. Mixing these up is an easy way to lose a policy mark.

The hackney carriage knowledge test

A Reigate & Banstead hackney carriage driver licence also lets you drive private hire vehicles, so it is worth more, and the test is harder. You sit it in writing at the Town Hall in Reigate under exam conditions. You get one hour and may not refer to any document. The council says the questions are "different and more advanced", especially on routes.

To prepare, the council points you to the Surrey street atlas, its Hackney Carriage Policy and Conditions, the Convictions Policy and the Highway Code. It does not publish a sample hackney paper, the number of questions or the pass mark. Results are emailed within seven days. If you fail, you are told which sections you failed, but not which questions, and you cannot see the paper.

Because you have no map on the day, hackney candidates need real route knowledge: the main roads from memory, and the shortest way between stations, hospitals, schools and town centres. Use our local area practice alongside the atlas, and drive the routes.

Learning the borough: roads and places

Start with the main roads, then hang places on them.

Road	What to know
M25	Junction 8 serves Reigate, joining the A217 at Reigate Hill
M23	Meets the M25 at junction 7 near Merstham and runs south to Gatwick
A23	The Brighton Road, north to south through Redhill, Salfords and Horley
A25	East to west through Redhill and Reigate
A217	North from Reigate over Reigate Hill towards Kingswood, Tadworth and Banstead
A242 and A2044	Shorter A roads in the Reigate and Redhill area that appear in route options

Then learn the places drivers are sent to most:

• Stations: Reigate, Redhill, Earlswood, Merstham, Horley, Salfords, Tadworth, Kingswood and Banstead.
• Hospital: East Surrey Hospital, off Canada Avenue in Redhill.
• Airport: Gatwick is just south of Horley, across the county boundary in West Sussex.
• Town centres: Reigate High Street, Redhill town centre, Banstead High Street and Horley.

The sample paper also asks which road a pub or school is on. You cannot learn every pub, but you can learn how to find one fast with a map, which is the skill the private hire test rewards.

A worked fares example

Fare questions in this test use plain arithmetic. Here are two of our own.

Change with a tip. The fare is £13.70. The passenger hands you a £20 note and says to keep £1. Change before the tip: £20.00 − £13.70 = £6.30. Take off the £1 tip: £6.30 − £1.00 = £5.30 to give back.

Fare by the mile. You are allowed to charge £2.40 a mile and the journey is 6 miles: 6 × £2.40 = £14.40.

Write each step on paper. Most wrong answers in fares questions come from skipping a step, not from hard maths.

How our Reigate & Banstead practice matches the real test

Our Reigate & Banstead route has 2,241 questions: about 2,000 shared council questions on the Highway Code, signs, law, safeguarding and equality, plus questions written for the borough's policy, fares and roads. The ten mock tests copy the private hire format: 20 questions, five from each of the four sections, 45 minutes, 18 to pass. Each answer has an explanation and a source.

Where we differ: on the real test you may use a map for section 1, and so you can in our mocks, so keep one open. We cannot reproduce the written hackney paper, because the council does not publish its format. For that, use our local area and route questions as a start and study the atlas. The Reigate & Banstead study note sums up this page for revision, and the printable question sheet gives you questions with an answer key on paper.

For the topics every council shares, such as the 1847 and 1976 Acts and touting, read our taxi and private hire law note and the wider council taxi knowledge test guide.

Your study plan

1. Today: take the free Reigate & Banstead diagnostic to see which of the four sections is weakest.
2. This week: download the council's sample paper, map reading guide and private hire policy. Learn the reporting deadlines and vehicle rules above.
3. Next week: drill the two sections people lose most marks in, policy and routes, until you score five out of five in each, with a map open for routes.
4. Before you book: sit the free Reigate & Banstead mock 1 under a 45-minute timer, answering the non-map sections first.
5. Ready check: aim for three mocks in a row at 85% or more. Pro unlocks mocks 2 to 10 and section practice from £6.99 a week; see pricing.

Neighbouring Sevenoaks also runs a demanding test with a perfect-score section. Compare it on our Sevenoaks taxi knowledge test page.