Booked hire and taxi display card

Information for authorised drivers

As a booked hire/taxi driver authorisation holder, we’ll give you a Booked Hire and Taxi Display Card to help your passengers verify that you are an authorised driver.

The display card includes:

• your photo
• your driver authorisation number
• the expiry date of your driver authorisation.

Display card example.

 

Legally prescribed areas where you must display the card

As a taxi driver, legally you must either display your Authorised Driver display card or an interim taxi driver display card when driving a taxi that is available for hire in any of the following prescribed taxi service areas:

• Brisbane
• Gold Coast
• Sunshine Coast
• Ipswich
• Redcliffe
• Toowoomba
• Bribie Island
• Gympie
• Bundaberg
• Cairns
• Yeppoon
• Gladstone
• Hervey Bay
• Innisfail
• Mackay
• Maryborough
• Mt Isa
• Rockhampton
• Townsville
• Warwick

It’s an offence not to comply with this requirement.

You may choose to also display the card outside the prescribed areas or in other vehicles, like a booked hire vehicle. However, it’s an offence, if you display the card when you don’t hold a current booked hire/taxi driver authorisation.

Where in the taxi to display the card

You must ensure the card is placed in a prominent position inside the taxi so that it’s visible to all passengers. It’s an offence not to do this. In many vehicles, attaching the card to the passenger sun visor so it can be seen by all passengers may be an easy way to comply.

Who can display the card?

Taxi drivers outside the prescribed areas and drivers of other types of public passenger vehicles, for example, a booked hire vehicle, may voluntarily display the card. However, it‘s an offence to display an Authorised Driver display card in any vehicle if you don’t hold a current booked hire/taxi driver authorisation.

Getting a display card

When we grant you a booked hire/taxi driver authorisation, either renewal or new application, we’ll automatically issue you with an Authorised Driver display card. You don’t need to apply for a card.

If your card is damaged, lost or stolen, you must apply for a replacement card at a Transport and motoring service centre.

Information for taxi operators

Interim display cards

If you’re a taxi operator in prescribed taxi service area, we’ll provide you with interim display cards to allow you to assign one to a taxi driver for a maximum of 2 weeks, in the following circumstances only:

• where the Authorised Driver display card issued to the driver has been damaged, lost or stolen and the driver has applied to us for a replacement card
• where the driver has not yet received their Authorised Driver display card and has an interim industry authority or an industry authority card as evidence that they hold booked hire or taxi driver authorisation.

It’s an offence for you to assign an interim display card to a driver that does not hold booked hire/taxi driver authorisation. You can verify that the driver holds this authorisation through our Driver authorisation public register.

We’ll only provide you a limited number of interim cards. Once a card has been returned to you, you can reassign it to another driver, as needed.

Interim display cards don’t show a driver’s image or driver authorisation number, as shown in the following example.

 

Interim display card records

When you assign an interim display card to a taxi driver, you must keep the following records:

• the driver’s name and driver authorisation number
• the reason for the assignment
• the date of the assignment
• the date the interim card was returned to the operator.

Example record for interim display cards

Operator name: ABC Taxi Co.

Card number	Driver name & DA number	Reason	Date issued	Date returned
00023	Bill Smith 234567891	New driver—waiting for card	1 July 2011	10 July 2011
00024	Jill Brown 012345678	Original card lost	9 July 2011	16 July 2011
00024	Rodney Jones 123456789	Original card stolen	1 August 2011	9 August 2011

We’ll check your interim display card records when we do operator audits.