Adding Extra Stops to a Chauffeur Journey Along the Way

Why a stop is bigger than it looks

On paper an extra stop is a five-minute detour. In practice it is a deviation from the route, a period stationary somewhere that may not permit stopping, and a passenger who takes longer than they promised. Three stops on a cross-London journey can add more time than the driving between them.

That is the reason stops belong in the enquiry rather than the conversation. A journey planned with them is a different journey to one that acquires them, and the difference shows up in the timing at the far end. Nobody minds a stop that was planned. What causes trouble is a stop arriving after the schedule has already been built without it.

Declaring stops on the enquiry

The journey planner asks for a collection point and a destination, which describes a two-point journey. Anything in between goes in the notes box on the final step, in order, with an address for each and a rough idea of how long you will be.

Say what happens at each one. Collecting a second passenger, dropping a bag at a hotel and waiting while somebody attends a twenty-minute appointment are three quite different requirements, and only the first is genuinely brief. A twenty-minute appointment is a wait, and a wait is a different thing to a pick-up in every respect that matters to a schedule.

• Each address, in the order you want them
• What happens at each stop and roughly how long
• Whether anyone joins or leaves the party there
• Whether the stop is essential or droppable if time is short

Stops where the car cannot wait

Central London is full of addresses where a vehicle simply cannot stand: red routes, bus lanes, loading bays with restricted hours, and streets with no legal stopping at all. A ten-minute wait at such an address means the car circles or parks nearby, which turns a short stop into a longer one.

If you know your stop is on a difficult stretch, say so. It may be easier to move the stop fifty metres to a side street than to fight the location, and that decision is much better made in advance. Local knowledge of where a car can legally stand is one of the more valuable things a chauffeur brings, and it works best applied before the day.

Collecting other people on the way

A stop that involves another passenger introduces a dependency, because the journey now waits for somebody who is not in the car. Give their contact arrangement, or better still make sure they know the plan, because the most common failure on a multi-pick-up journey is a passenger who is not ready.

Where several people are being collected across a city, consider whether the order can be arranged around who is most likely to be late. It is a small piece of planning that removes a disproportionate amount of stress. Putting the least reliable passenger first, rather than last, is a surprisingly effective piece of planning.

When a stop appears on the day

Sometimes the need is genuine and unforeseen. Ask, on the day, and it can be considered against the schedule, the route and whatever the vehicle is committed to afterwards. It may be entirely straightforward, or it may not be possible without putting the rest of the day at risk.

How an added stop is treated commercially is governed by the terms of your booking. The practical point is that the answer depends on the day, so the request is a conversation rather than an assumption. Ask rather than instruct and you will get a straight answer about whether it can be done without putting the rest of your day at risk.

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