Green Cab (Boro Taxi) Statistics: Rise and Decline

In short: Green cabs (street hail liveries, also called boro taxis) went from 52,723 trips a day in 2015 to 1,582 a day in 2025, a drop of about 97%. In 2025 an average of 602 green cabs and 627 drivers made at least one trip each month; by July 2026 it was 520 drivers. TLC counted 652 licensed green taxis at the end of 2025, out of 16,000 permits the law authorized. Most remaining trips are street hails in upper Manhattan and Queens.

The figures below come from TLC's monthly industry indicators, TLC's annual report and TLC trip records, as noted under each chart.

The numbers at a glance

Trips per day, 2015–2025

The steepest fall came before the pandemic: from 52,723 a day in 2015 to 15,425 in 2019, a 71% drop. TLC's SHL Pilot report says that by January 2022, green cab trips had fallen "by more than 90% compared to peak levels," and points to the rise of app-dispatched FHVs and falling demand for street hails in the outer boroughs. TLC began issuing SHL permits in 2013, according to the same report.

For comparison with other industries, the same TLC dataset shows high-volume app trips at 667,537 a day in 2025, and yellow taxis at 131,133:

Cars and drivers still working

In 2026 the monthly driver count stayed between 520 and 580 (January to July), and about 285–310 green cabs were on the road on an average day (TLC Help datasets tlc-monthly-unique-drivers and tlc-monthly-vehicles-per-day).

Licenses: the counts don't all match

Some of the unused authorized permits were turned into the SHL Pilot ("P" cars), which do pre-arranged trips only. TLC issued 3,509 pilot permits; 563 were in use in June 2025 (SHL pilot "P" cars). Pilot cars have no meter and work as pre-arranged FHVs, so they are not in the green cab trip, vehicle and driver series on this page.

Street hail or dispatch?

Green cab trip records carry a trip type: 1 = street hail, 2 = dispatch.

Green cabs can take dispatches from bases and e-hail apps, but the records show the business is still mostly hails.

Top green cab pickup zones

East Harlem North alone had about 26% of all green cab pickups in the period, and East Harlem North and South together about 39% (our arithmetic). Most top zones are in upper Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Green cabs may not take street hails in the Hail Exclusionary Zone, south of West 110th Street and East 96th Street (TLC). Taxi zones don't follow that line exactly (the Central Park zone runs on both sides of it), so this data cannot show whether any pickup broke the rule. More: hail zone, can green cabs pick up at JFK or LaGuardia?, can green cabs use taxi stands? and can green cabs charge the LaGuardia surcharge?.

What changed, without guessing

TLC's own explanation (SHL Pilot report, September 2025): demand for street-hailed trips in the outer boroughs fell as app-dispatched FHVs grew, while the number of TLC drivers kept rising and many drivers chose to lease FHVs short-term. The data agree on timing: app trips per day rose from 113,824 in 2015 to 700,916 in 2019 as green trips fell. The data cannot prove cause, and we don't add reasons TLC hasn't given.

What the data can't tell you

• Earnings. TLC's indicators include green farebox per day, but not what owners or drivers keep.
• Cash tips. Trip records only capture card tips.
• Exact locations. Records use taxi zones, not street addresses.
• Why individual owners left. No dataset records reasons for giving up a permit.
• Pilot "P" car trips. They are FHVs, not green cabs, and are not in these green cab series.

Are green cabs still around? Yes, a few hundred; see are green cabs still in NYC?. For owners: owning a green cab, SHL glossary entry, the 82-30(b) inspection rule and the vehicles hub.