When Taxis & FHVs Enter the Congestion Zone

In short: Taxis and FHVs enter the Congestion Relief Zone most in the evening. In 2025 the busiest hour was 7 p.m. (3,779,615 taxi/FHV entries over the year), and the quietest was 3 a.m. (1,067,449). 69.6% of taxi/FHV entries came in the peak toll period, compared with about 80% for private cars. Thursday was the busiest day and Monday the quietest.

These are our sums of the MTA's open entries data (t6yz-b64h) for the "TLC Taxi/FHV" class, January 5 – December 31, 2025, fetched October 12, 2026. They count vehicles entering, not trips.

The numbers at a glance

Hourly bars: weekdays vs weekends

What stands out:

• Weekdays build all day. A morning rise to about 9,500 entries in the 9 a.m. hour, a slight midday dip, then a climb to the 7 p.m. top (about 10,800). The 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. hours stay above 10,000.
• Weekends are flatter and later. From noon to 8 p.m. the weekend runs at 8,300–9,700 an hour, and the midnight hour (about 9,500) is almost as busy as the afternoon. Weekend nights are when the zone's late trips happen.
• 9 p.m. barely slows down. The car toll drops to the overnight rate at 9 p.m., but taxi/FHV entries in the 9 p.m. hour (3,610,009 in 2025) were almost as many as at 7 p.m.
• The quiet window is 2–5 a.m. on weekdays (about 2,000–2,700 entries an hour).

Peak vs overnight

The MTA's peak period is 5 a.m.–9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m.–9 p.m. on weekends (MTA).

In 2025, taxis and FHVs made about as many overnight entries as private cars did (20.2 million vs 20.0 million), even though cars made far more entries overall. For a TLC trip the time doesn't change the charge: the per-trip amount ($0.75, or $1.50 on Uber/Lyft, as of October 12, 2026) is the same day and night. The time matters for your personal car, which pays $9 at peak and $2.25 overnight with E-ZPass. Hours explained: congestion pricing peak hours.

Day of the week

The week rises from Monday to a Thursday high and stays high through Saturday. Sunday is second-lowest.

Compare: when trips are charged

TLC trip records show a related pattern. The share of weekday trips charged the congestion fee also climbs in the evening: for Uber/Lyft it is lowest around 7 a.m. (26.5%) and highest in the 9 p.m. hour (40.7%):

For app demand across the whole city, see busiest hours for Uber and Lyft.

What the data can't tell you

• Not earnings. More entries at 7 p.m. don't mean better pay at 7 p.m.
• Not which industry. Yellow taxis, green cabs, Uber/Lyft and black cars share one class.
• Only per-trip plan vehicles. TLC vehicles outside the plan are counted under their vehicle class.
• Entries, not trips. Empty vehicles driving in to a pickup are counted; trips that stay inside the zone aren't. The MTA warns that entries don't reflect repeat entries, exemptions or payment methods.
• Time zone and hour. We used the dataset's hour_of_day, the hour each entry is allocated to.

Source, method and data lag

We summed crz_entries for vehicle_class = "TLC Taxi/FHV" by hour_of_day, day_of_week and time_period for 2025 from t6yz-b64h on October 12, 2026 (rows updated October 8, 2026). Averages divide by the number of matching days from January 5 to December 31, 2025. Other views: entries by crossing, monthly entries, TLC licensed vehicles. Questions: do I pay driving in empty?, are WAVs exempt?, charged twice in one day?. More in the tolls hub.