Why ground transportation deserves a real RFP
Ground transportation touches safety, spend, and the impression a company makes on clients and candidates, which puts it above an informal booking decision once volume grows. A short, structured RFP gives procurement a documented, defensible selection process and gives the business a vendor chosen on the same criteria every time, not whoever an assistant happened to call first.
What to include in the RFP
- Coverage — which cities and airports the vendor serves directly, and how they handle the rest
- Fleet and standards — vehicle classes, age, and whether they're commercially licensed and insured
- Chauffeur vetting — background checks, licensing, and NDA capability for sensitive travel
- Technology — real-time trip visibility, flight tracking, and how bookings are made
- Billing — consolidated invoicing, cost-centre tagging, and rate structure
- References — other corporate accounts of a similar size or industry
Ask every vendor to respond to the same fixed set of sample trips (say, a typical airport transfer and a half-day as-directed booking) so the pricing responses can be laid side by side.
Scoring bids apples to apples
Ground-transportation pricing is rarely quoted the same way twice, one vendor's per-mile rate, another's flat zone rate, a third's hourly minimum, so raw price comparisons mislead. Normalize every bid against your own sample trips rather than comparing rate cards directly, and weight non-price factors (coverage, safety, technology, references) explicitly rather than letting the lowest number win by default.
Contract terms worth negotiating
Beyond the rate itself, the terms that matter over the life of the contract are: how long quoted rates are locked in, cancellation and no-show windows, whether delays and reasonable schedule changes are billed, and any late-night or holiday premiums. Ask for these in writing rather than assuming they match a verbal quote.
Piloting before you commit company-wide
For a multi-office or multi-city rollout, a short pilot with one office or one travel pattern (airport transfers, say) surfaces real service quality before the full contract is signed. A vendor confident in their service will support a limited pilot rather than requiring an immediate company-wide commitment.
After the award
Once a vendor is selected, the RFP's requirements should become the account setup: a named account manager, the agreed billing format, and the vehicle classes and booking process communicated to the travel-booking population. This is also the natural point to formalize a written ground-transportation policy so the new account is used consistently.