Around 1,000 taxi entrepreneurs will soon be informed that their operators' licences are being revoked, according to the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom.

Last year, a series of amendments to legislation on taxi services came into force. One of these laws states that taxi drivers now have to pass an entrepreneurial test to obtain a licence.

The deadline to pass the test was in May. Entrepreneurs who entered the sector after 2018 were given a year to take the test.

The aim of the entrepreneurial test and the related training is to raise the level of competence of taxi entrepreneurs," according to Pasi Hautalahti, chief adviser at the traffic authority.

Last autumn, checks carried out across the country revealed that many drivers lacked basic knowledge of how to operate as an entrepreneur in Finland.

"This is partly due to language skills. Often it's just ignorance rather than deliberate neglect," Hautalahti said.

Traficom is currently mailing decisions to people who have had their licences revoked.

In the autumn, the agency plans to carry out checks to ensure that operators that lost their taxi licences are no longer in business.

There were 10,499 valid taxi licences across the country in July. The figure has dropped by around 2,000 compared to the same time last year.