One old cabbies’ saying goes ‘Bermondsey pays better than Belgravia’, reflecting the sadly true notion that generosity is more likely found among working Londoners than the gentry. Now payment app Lopay has analysed 57,816 fares paid to more than 2,000 taxi and private hire drivers in the capital and found that just 1 in 5 passengers alighting in Wandsworth’s wealthy enclaves tipped their driver, barely half the figure recorded in top-tipping Hillingdon.
According to Lopay’s data, London’s worst tippers were Wandsworth, where just 21.3 per cent of passengers added a gratuity to their fare, followed by Barnet (22 per cent), Greenwich (22 per cent), Brent (22.5 per cent) and Westminster (23 per cent). Top tippers were Hillingdon (38 per cent), Havering (35 per cent), Lewisham (34 per cent), Hounslow (33 per cent) and Richmond (30 per cent). The generosity of taxi customers alighting in Hillingdon may stem from the fact that the West London borough is home to Heathrow airport, so the data includes high numbers of air passengers carrying luggage.
Further analysis of the data revealed that the average gratuity paid to drivers across the capital was 10 per cent or £3.10 and that passengers are most likely to leave a tip in the evening, between 7pm and midnight. By contrast, late-night revellers are the least likely to leave a tip, with the worst hours for tipping recorded between midnight and 5am. Londoners were more likely to tip on weekdays than at the weekend, suggesting that those able to claim their fare back as a work expense may be more generous than those paying out of their own pocket.
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