London taxis voted best in the world

London’s iconic taxis have been voted the best in the world for the fourth year running in the annual taxi report compiled by hotels.com.

Almost 5,000 travellers from 23 countries around the world provided their views on various aspects of travelling by taxi.

The cabs were judged on cleanliness, value, quality of driving, knowledge of the area, friendliness, safety and availability.

Although they were voted the most expensive, London’s black cabs placed top in five out of seven categories: safety, friendliness, cleanliness, quality of driving and knowledge of the area.

London’s taxis beat competition from other top international destinations including New York (favourite among nine per cent of travellers) and Hong Kong (third with seven per cent of the vote).

Tokyo and Singapore completed the global top five receiving seven per cent and six per cent of the vote respectively, displacing the German city of Berlin and capital of Thailand, Bangkok from last year’s top five.

Helsinki, Dublin and Madrid completed the top 10.

The survey also found that taxis are the second most popular mode of transportation, behind the bus, when travelling from the airport or station to a hotel.

Safety is the biggest concern for travellers when looking for a taxi, followed in order of importance by value for money, knowledge of area, quality of driving, availability, cleanliness and friendliness. The survey also looked at pet peeves, with 45 per cent of travellers admitting they are irked when a driver smokes in the taxi, while travellers ranked drivers that were too distracted or too smelly as highly annoying.

The majority of travellers (55 per cent) would share a taxi and the cost with a stranger.