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Richmond Hill, TLC taxi zone 197, has two rush hours: weekday mornings for pickups and Saturday nights for drop-offs. 1,179,192 trips started here from September 2025 to August 2026, about 3,231 a day, 15th of Queens' 69 zones. Trips are short and local, and the zone trades riders back and forth with South Ozone Park almost evenly.
Richmond Hill at a glance (zone 197)
Zone 197 is labelled "Boro Zone" in TLC's lookup table. The label groups trip data; it does not mark any legal area. Richmond Hill has eight neighbours on the zone map: Kew Gardens, Briarwood/Jamaica Hills, Jamaica, South Jamaica, South Ozone Park, Ozone Park, Woodhaven and Forest Park/Highland Park. About 1,109,244 trips ended here.
Mornings out, Saturday nights in
On weekdays, pickups jump to about 259 at 8 a.m., and 21.4% of weekday pickups start between 7 and 10 a.m. Saturday pickups peak at 7 p.m. and Sunday's at midnight; on Sunday, 23.3% of pickups start between midnight and 5 a.m.
The drop-off curve shows where nights end. On Saturday the busiest drop-off hour is 11 p.m. (about 243), and on Sunday it is midnight (about 208). Saturday's 11 p.m. hour beats every weekday drop-off hour, including the 8 a.m. weekday peak of about 212.
Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park
The two zones swap riders. 13.4% of Richmond Hill pickups end in South Ozone Park, and 13.8% of trips ending here started there. Only trips that stay inside Richmond Hill (13.6%) are more common. Then come Jamaica (8.9%), Kew Gardens (5.7%), Woodhaven (5.5%) and Forest Hills (3.8%). JFK takes 3.2%. Only 1.8% of app pickups paid the Congestion Relief Zone charge.
Demand grew over the year. Monthly pickups went from 84,739 in September 2025 to 106,137 in March 2026, the high point, and stayed close to 100,000 a month through the summer. June to August 2026 had 11.1% more pickups than September to November 2025. One year of data cannot show whether that growth will continue, so use it as a snapshot, not a forecast.
Sectors, fares and pay
Rides are short and local. Half of the 1,155,239 app pickups (98% of the total; yellow 23,230, green 723) were under 2.36 miles and 13.1 minutes, and median driver pay was $12.19 before tips on a $15.05 fare, 59th of 69 Queens zones. Riders tipped 2.1% ($0.41 on average).
Yellow cab riders use taxis differently here. The median yellow trip was 5.24 miles and $29.50, and 8.1% of yellow pickups went to an airport, more than double the app share. Card-paying yellow riders tipped 8.2%. Yellow pickups fell from 1,777 in May 2026 to 995 in June.
Who may pick up here
Richmond Hill is in TLC's Hail Zone. There, a green cab (street hail livery) may take a passenger by hail or a pre-arranged trip through its base (Chapter 80, §80-19(b)(2)), and a yellow taxi may take hails too. Drivers of other for-hire vehicles, including Uber and Lyft, must not pick up anyone who has not booked through a licensed base (80-19(c)(1)). DOT's relief-stand data and parking-sign records showed no stand in zone 197 on 2026-10-12. More: who can pick up where and the Hail Zone.
Nearby zones
Data on this page
Aggregates of public data. They describe trips and vehicles, never individual people.
Aggregated by TLC Help from TLC trip records, Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 (pickup date; TLC publishes trip files about two months after the month ends and may revise them). 'App' = high-volume for-hire services (Uber, Lyft). Taxi records with a negative fare (reversals) are excluded. Averages, medians and rates use 'clean' trips only: 1 minute to 4 hours, more than 0 and under 150 miles, fare above $0 and under $1,000. 'Fare' is the metered fare_amount for taxis and base_passenger_fare for app trips — before tolls, tips, taxes and surcharges — so it is not what the passenger paid in total. App driver_pay is TLC's 'total driver pay (not including tolls or tips and net of commission, surcharges, or taxes)'. Tips are separate. 'Per engaged hour' divides pay by passenger time only (pickup to drop-off). It leaves out time driving to pickups and waiting for requests, so real hourly earnings are lower; it is not the TLC minimum-pay formula. Monthly cells with 1–9 trips are shown as blank (null). Pairs with fewer than 10 trips are not listed.
- Richmond Hill: trip facts by sector — Key trip facts for taxi zone 197 (Richmond Hill, Queens) by sector, 12 months.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Taxi tips: tip_amount records credit-card tips only (cash tips are not recorded), so taxi tip rates use credit-card trips (payment_type 1). App tips are the tips field on every trip. Tip rate = tips ÷ fare. Medians and rates need at least 250 trips in the cell (else blank); counts of 1–9 are blank. Pickup-side stats (fare, pay, tips) describe trips that START here.
- Richmond Hill: when trips start, by hour — Average pickups per day in each hour in zone 197, on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays (all sectors).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Average over all such days in the window, holidays included.
- Richmond Hill: pickups by month — Trips starting in taxi zone 197 (Richmond Hill, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- Richmond Hill: where trips from here go — Top drop-off zones for trips starting in zone 197, as a share of all its pickups (12 months, all sectors).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Out of 1,179,192 pickups. 'Outside NYC' = zone 265.
- Richmond Hill: where trips to here come from — Top pickup zones for trips ending in zone 197, as a share of all its drop-offs (12 months, all sectors).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Out of 1,109,244 drop-offs.
- Richmond Hill: when trips arrive, by hour — Average drop-offs per day in each hour in zone 197, on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays (all sectors; hour of pickup).NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Hour is the trip's pickup hour (TLC records both, but a trip is binned by when it started).
- Richmond Hill: drop-offs by month — Trips ending in taxi zone 197 (Richmond Hill, Queens) each month, by sector.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026
- All 263 taxi zones: trips and key facts (map-ready) — One row per TLC taxi zone (LocationID 1–263) with pickups, drop-offs, sector mix, app driver pay, fares and tip rates — the source for zone maps, hubs and the zone explorer.NYC TLC Trip Record Data (yellow, green, high-volume FHV), Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · pulled Oct 12, 2026Medians/rates need ≥250 trips (else null). labels are LocationIDs as strings; zones[] has names, boroughs, service_zone (from taxi_zone_lookup.csv), suggested slugs and neighbouring zone ids (shared boundary, from taxi_zones.zip).
Frequently asked questions
How many rides start in Richmond Hill?
TLC trip records show 1,179,192 pickups in zone 197 from September 2025 to August 2026, about 3,231 a day, 15th of Queens' 69 zones.
Where do Richmond Hill trips go?
13.6% stay in Richmond Hill and 13.4% go to South Ozone Park, almost the same share. Jamaica (8.9%), Kew Gardens (5.7%) and Woodhaven (5.5%) follow.
When is Richmond Hill busiest?
For pickups, 8 a.m. on weekdays (about 259). For drop-offs, Saturday night: about 243 trips end here in the 11 p.m. hour, more than in any weekday hour.
Can green cabs pick up in Richmond Hill?
Yes. Richmond Hill is in TLC's Hail Zone, where a green cab may take a street hail or a pre-arranged trip through its base (TLC rule 80-19(b)(2)).
Sources
Last reviewed against the official sources on .
- NYC TLC Trip Record Data nyc.gov
- TLC Taxi Zone Lookup Table d37ci6vzurychx.cloudfront.net
- TLC Rules, Chapter 51 (Definitions) nyc.gov
- TLC Rules, Chapter 80 (Drivers) nyc.gov
- NYC Open Data: Taxi and FHV Relief Stands (DOT, vqu8-xef9) data.cityofnewyork.us
- NYC Open Data: Parking Regulation Locations and Signs (DOT, nfid-uabd) data.cityofnewyork.us
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TLC Help is not a law firm and is not affiliated with the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission or OATH. Explanations on this site are general information, not legal advice. Legal representation is provided by independent attorneys and OATH-registered representatives in our network.