The hour between meetings
is the one you get back.
Driving yourself to Rotterdam costs an hour and gives nothing back. In the rear of an S-Class or an EQE the same hour is a call, a deck read properly, or the quiet before a difficult conversation — and someone else deals with the A4.
Two seats, a wide armrest and no road to watch.
The rear of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class is built around the idea that the important person is not driving. Long-wheelbase legroom means a laptop opens fully without meeting your knees, the armrest gives you somewhere to put a phone and a coffee at the same time, and the seat reclines far enough that reading forty pages is not a neck injury. The EQS, the EQS SUV and the BMW i7 give you the same room; the E-Class and EQE in Business Class give you rather less, which is usually still more than a train table.
The electric cars are the reason this works better than it used to. With no engine in front of the bulkhead, an EQE or EQS holds a phone call at conversational volume at motorway speed. The person on the other end hears you, not the road, and you are not shouting into a headset while the car changes lanes. Chargers for both iOS and Android are in the back, and there is water on board, so a battery at nine per cent does not become the crisis of the morning.
One honest note about connectivity. There is no on-board network in these cars and we do not claim one: you work on your phone’s connection, tethered to a laptop if that is your habit. Dutch motorway coverage is good enough that most people never think about it, but it is your data, not ours, and you should plan the heavy uploads for the office.
What fits into each leg of a Dutch working day.
These are the runs executives make week in, week out. The times are what the car actually takes outside the worst of the peak; your chauffeur watches the day and picks the departure window.
Three quarters of an hour down the A2. Enough for the pre-read and a call to the person who sent it, and you arrive at the Jaarbeurs knowing what you think.
Just under an hour by the A4. The standard ministry-and-lunch run: brief on the way out, dictate the follow-up on the way back.
About an hour between the Zuidas and Kop van Zuid. Two colleagues in the back turns the journey into the meeting before the meeting.
Around two and a half hours door to door. A morning of work, a European lunch, and a car that is still yours when the afternoon runs over.
Roughly the same again, east instead of south. The Ruhr day that used to cost two flights now costs one departure from your own front door.
Four appointments in three cities. Booked by the hour, the car waits outside each one with your coat, your cases and the next set of papers still on the seat.
Buy the hours, not the kilometres.
A meeting day is booked by the hour so the car stays with you between stops. A single leg from A to B is quoted point to point instead, as one fixed all-in figure.
Hourly hire has a two-hour minimum, includes 40 kilometres in every hour and must start and end in the same city. Taxes are included, cards cost nothing extra and invoicing is available on a corporate account. A booking made within 12 hours of pickup adds 10%.
How the hours are actually used.
Give dispatch the first pickup and roughly how long the day looks. Four hours is the usual minimum for a Randstad day; nobody is asked to guess the exact minute of the last meeting.
Cases, coats and the box of samples stay in the boot. You walk into each building carrying only what you need, and the laptop is still open where you left it.
When a meeting runs forty minutes late the chauffeur simply waits and the same hourly rate continues. There is no meter, no surge and no renegotiation at the kerb.
Home, the hotel or the airport, with the day’s notes finished before you arrive. On My Ride the office can see the car moving without anyone having to call you.
The mechanics of by-the-hour hire: minimums, included kilometres and how overruns are handled.
Accounts, invoicing and standing arrangements for teams that book every week.
When the car has to stay with the team all day and the schedule changes twice before lunch.
The EQE, EQS and i7 in detail — the quietest cabins for a day of calls.
No, and we would rather say so than let you plan around something that is not there. You work on your phone’s connection, tethered if you need a laptop online. Chargers for iOS and Android are in the back of every car, so the phone doing the work does not run flat.
First Class. The long-wheelbase S-Class, the EQS and the BMW i7 have the rear legroom to open a laptop properly and recline while reading. Business Class is a comfortable place to take calls and read on a phone, but a laptop is tighter.
Yes. Chauffeurs are used to being the quietest person in the car and what is said behind them stays there. If your compliance team requires a signed confidentiality agreement, send it with the booking and dispatch will arrange it.
Nothing dramatic. On an hourly booking the chauffeur waits and the same rate continues for as long as the day needs. You are not rebooking a car from a pavement, and no surcharge appears because the afternoon went badly.
It depends on the day. The train is quick between two station districts; the car wins when the meeting is not next to a station, when there are two or three of you, or when the cases and materials would otherwise have to be carried. Door to door it is about an hour either way.
Yes, both are around two and a half hours each way, which fits a long day comfortably. Cross-border trips are priced as one fixed all-in quote rather than by the hour, and the same chauffeur waits with the car between your appointments.