Corporate chauffeur service from LondonLimo.net puts a company's ground transport in London, Ontario on one account: profiles for every traveller, booking by an assistant on their behalf, Pearson runs with flight tracking and a rate agreed in advance, hourly executive days, visiting clients and candidates met at the airport with a name board, and one invoice a month coded by cost centre with a duty-of-care record of who travelled where and with whom. It is built for the head offices, the hospitals, Western and Fanshawe, the courts and public bodies and the law and accounting firms downtown - and it costs nothing to set up.
Why a London company needs a chauffeur account rather than an expense line
Most London companies pay for ground transport the expensive way: a mix of taxi receipts stapled to expense claims, rideshare on a personal card, an employee's mileage for the Pearson run and a rental car for the visitor from Toronto who then has to find the plant on Oxford Street East. None of it is tracked, none of it is priced in advance, and none of it is anybody's job. An account changes the arrangement in three ways. The rate for every journey the company makes regularly - the Pearson run, the YXU run, the hotel-to-office shuttle, the site visit - is fixed and known before anyone travels. The booking is a two-minute task for whoever is organising the trip, with the traveller's profile already on file. And the whole month arrives as one invoice with the journeys coded the way finance wants them, which is the part the people who approve the account care about most.
Who uses it in London
The head offices: Canada Life on Dufferin, 3M Canada on Tartan Drive, Labatt on Richmond, General Dynamics Land Systems and Diamond Aircraft near the airport, Digital Extremes, Trojan Technologies, Info-Tech, StarTech.com, Voices and the professional firms clustered downtown. The hospitals and research institutes, whose visiting surgeons, examiners and recruits arrive at Pearson and need to be at University Hospital at 7 a.m. Western, Ivey, Fanshawe, Huron and King's, whose speakers, donors, external examiners and visiting teams need collecting. The courts, the city, the county and the federal and provincial offices, whose visitors travel under a policy. And every company with a Toronto parent whose people come down the 401 for a day.
What the account holds
A traveller profile for each person who travels: name, mobile, email, the home and office addresses, the vehicle class the policy allows, seat and temperature preferences, whether they want to talk. Booker permissions for the assistants and coordinators who arrange travel, with the ability to book for anyone in their group. Cost centres, project codes and PO numbers to attach to each booking. Approved rates for the regular routes, so the assistant never has to shop. A card on file or monthly invoicing on terms for approved accounts. And a duty-of-care record - who travelled, when, with which chauffeur, in which vehicle, on which route - available on request, which the risk and HR functions of larger employers increasingly require. The corporate accounts page sets out the terms.
The Pearson run as a line in the travel policy
For a London company the London to Pearson run is the single largest ground-transport cost and the one most worth fixing. On the account it becomes a known number - a business sedan at a planning figure of $295-345 plus HST, an SUV at $345-395 - booked by the assistant with the flight number attached, flight-tracked on the return, and invoiced against the traveller's cost centre. Executives who fly weekly keep a standing pickup with the same chauffeur; the two hours on the 401 become a working session with Wi-Fi and a charging port rather than a drive. Compared with employee mileage plus two days of Pearson parking, or with a rideshare that surges, the fixed figure is usually the cheaper line as well as the safer one.
The visitor: met, delivered, collected, returned
The journey an account looks after best is the visitor's. The candidate flying in from Vancouver, the auditor from Toronto, the supplier from Germany, the surgeon interviewing at LHSC: met inside Terminal 1 or at YXU with a name board, delivered to the DoubleTree or the Delta Armouries, collected at 8:15 for the boardroom, taken to lunch and to the plant, returned to the hotel, and driven back to the airport the next day - each leg a fixed rate on the account, booked by your assistant, invoiced to your cost centre, and never once the visitor's problem in a city they do not know. The chauffeur is briefed with the visitor's name and the host's mobile, and the host receives a text when the visitor is in the car.
Executive days by the hour
When the day has three or more stops - the plant, the client, the lunch, the site in Woodstock, the return - an hourly booking is cheaper than a chain of point-to-point journeys and far simpler. The chauffeur and the car stay with the executive for the day, the schedule can change at every stop, the papers stay in the car, and the rate is a planning figure of $95-115 per hour for a business sedan with a three-hour minimum. Roadshows, board weeks, investor visits and the annual audit are all run this way; the hourly page explains the minimums, the garage-to-garage rule and how multi-day programmes are quoted.
Groups: the conference, the offsite, the plant tour
A delegation at RBC Place, an offsite at a Muskoka or Niagara resort, a plant tour for a customer group, a team flying together from Pearson: the Sprinter for fourteen and the coach for up to fifty-six are planned by a coordinator from your schedule, with a manifest, a named lead chauffeur and one invoice. The group and team transportation page describes how a group booking is run; the account makes it a line item rather than a project.
The invoice, and the duty-of-care record
Monthly, itemised by journey, with the traveller, the date, the route, the vehicle, the cost centre and the PO on each line; exportable as a spreadsheet for the expense system; HST shown separately. On request, the duty-of-care extract: for any date, who was in which vehicle with which chauffeur on which route, with the chauffeur's licence and screening on file. Larger employers and the public bodies ask for this; smaller companies find it useful the first time someone asks where a colleague is.
Confidentiality and conduct
Every chauffeur signs a written confidentiality undertaking: nothing seen or heard in the car is repeated to anyone, including the person paying for it. That covers the deal discussed in the back seat on the way to Pearson, the candidate interviewed over lunch, the visitor's identity and the destination. Chauffeurs are silent unless spoken to, do not play the radio unless asked, and do not discuss other clients. The chauffeur standard sets it out and it is enforced: one breach is permanent.
Setting the account up
One call or email to the desk: the company details, the billing contact, the people who may book and the people who travel, the cost-centre structure and the approved vehicle classes. Profiles are loaded the same day; the first booking can be made that afternoon on the engine or by email to dispatch. There is no set-up fee, no minimum spend and no contract term; the account is a way of organising bookings, not a subscription. The corporate accounts page has the detail, including monthly invoicing terms for approved accounts.
Three corporate bookings, as they actually run
A head office, Monday. An assistant books five Pearson departures for the week on the account in six minutes, each with the traveller's profile and cost centre; the two executives flying Tuesday share an SUV from Dufferin Avenue at 5:15 a.m. and the invoice splits the fare between their departments.
A hospital, Wednesday. A visiting surgeon lands at Terminal 1 at 9:40 p.m., is met with a name board, delivered to the DoubleTree, collected at 6:30 a.m. for University Hospital, and driven back to Pearson Friday afternoon - four legs booked by the department coordinator on one email.
A law firm, Thursday. A partner takes a business sedan by the hour from 8 a.m.: the courthouse on Dundas, a client in Kitchener, lunch, the office, and a 6 p.m. dinner at the Delta Armouries. Nine hours, one rate, papers never left the car.
Planning figures. Rates on this page are LondonLimo.net planning ranges before HST; approved account rates are confirmed in writing. Company, hospital and institution names describe clients' likely destinations and imply no affiliation or endorsement.
Travel policy, procurement and the questions the account will be asked
Larger London employers put ground transport through procurement, and the questions are always the same: licensing, insurance limits, screening, vehicle age, data handling, cancellation terms, invoicing and what happens when a chauffeur is late. The chauffeur standard and the terms answer most of them in writing; the desk supplies certificates of insurance, the screening process and the data-handling statement on request, and can sign a supplier agreement on the company's paper. Travel managers who follow the GBTA framework for duty of care will recognise the record we keep; travel-risk policies that require a named provider for out-of-hours travel are the most common reason a London company opens an account.
Booking on behalf of visitors and candidates
The visitor does not need an account, an app or a card: the assistant books on the company's account, the chauffeur's details go to the visitor's mobile the night before, and the visitor walks out of Terminal 1 to a name board. Candidates for the hospitals and the university are looked after the same way, which matters when a recruit's first impression of London is the drive in from Pearson. Hosts receive a text when the visitor is in the car and another when they are at the hotel.
Rates, minimums and how the account is charged
Point-to-point journeys are charged at the fixed rate shown when booked; the Pearson and YXU runs at the account rates agreed in writing; hourly days at the hourly rate with the three-hour minimum; groups and coaches per quote. Waiting time beyond the included fifteen minutes on a point-to-point pickup is charged in fifteen-minute blocks; on airport arrivals the included hour applies. Cancellation follows the site's policy - 72, 48 and 24 hours at 10, 50 and 100 per cent - measured from the scheduled pickup. HST is shown separately; the invoice is exportable for the expense system; monthly terms are available to approved accounts after the first month.
The London calendar an account plans around
RBC Place conferences, Western's convocations and homecoming, the Western Fair in September, the Knights' playoff run, the Stratford Festival season for the client dinner, and the December weeks when every hotel and every chauffeur in the city is booked: the events calendar lists them, and an account holder's standing bookings are protected through them. A company that hosts its board in London in the same week every year keeps the same vehicles and chauffeurs on file.
