Standing orders: the same car, the same chauffeur, every Monday at 6

The standing order, in one paragraph

Most of the trips a black car makes are one-offs — an arrival, a wedding, a night out — but a large and quiet share are the same trip made again and again: the consultant who flies to Calgary every Monday at 7 and returns every Thursday at 6, the family whose two children go to a school across the city, the widower whose dialysis is Tuesday and Friday at 8, the couple who have dinner in Yorkville every Saturday, the executive assistant who books the CEO's Friday flight every week of the year. For these passengers the booking itself is the friction, and the standing order removes it: the trip is in the roster, the chauffeur knows the house, the seats are in the car, and a change is a text. This article explains how a standing order is set up and what it records, the same-chauffeur promise and its limits, the common patterns (the commuter, the school run, the appointment, the social run, the shift worker, the senior), the adjustments and the pause, the billing, the account that holds it, and the reliability that comes from a booking made once for a year.

Setting one up: one conversation

A standing order starts with a call or an email to dispatch (or a note in the engine on the first booking): the pattern — "every Monday, 6 a.m., home to Terminal 1; every Thursday, meet the 6:10 p.m. from Calgary, Terminal 1 to home" — the address and its details (the gate code, the side door, the porte-cochère), the passengers and any children's ages, the vehicle class, the preferences (the front seat, quiet, a newspaper, a temperature), the language if any, the flight pattern for airport runs (the flight number changes week to week and the passenger texts it, or the account's assistant does), and the payment (a card on file or a corporate account). Dispatch enters it as a series in the roster for as far ahead as the passenger wants — a semester, a year, "until told otherwise" — and assigns a chauffeur.

The same chauffeur and car

A standing order's chauffeur is the same person week after week wherever the roster allows — the chauffeur who knows that the Leaside house's driveway is on the side street, that the seven-year-old needs the booster and the four-year-old the harness, that the passenger likes the radio off and the Globe on the seat — and the vehicle is the same class and usually the same car. The limits: illness, holidays and the roster's other demands mean a substitute perhaps one week in ten, and the passenger is told the evening before with the substitute's name and plate; the seats and the preferences travel with the order, not the chauffeur, so the substitute knows them. The chauffeur vs driver article is about what the continuity produces, and the how dispatch works article describes how the roster protects it.

The weekly commuter

The consultant, the executive, the partner who flies the same route every week is the standing order's original passenger: the Monday departure at an hour the red-eye article covers, the Thursday or Friday return met at Door A with the flight tracked, the corporate account that holds it and the consulting firms article that describes the pattern. The flight numbers change; the passenger or the assistant texts the week's numbers on Sunday; the pickup times move with them. A commuter whose Monday flight is cancelled texts "no car Monday" and pays nothing.

The school run

Two children to a school across the city every weekday at 7:45, home at 3:30 (or to the after-school programme, the hockey arena, the music lesson): the standing order records the children's ages and the seats, the school's drop-off loop and its rules, the named adult who receives them at the other end, and the parent's mobile for the text at each end; the unaccompanied minors guide has the handover rules and the Bloor West and High Park guide describes the west end where the school run is the neighbourhood's standing order. Paused for holidays, professional development days and the summer with one text; the seats live in the car.

The standing medical appointment

Dialysis three mornings a week, chemotherapy on a cycle, physiotherapy on Tuesdays, the cardiologist monthly — the standing medical appointment is the standing order that matters most to the people who hold it, and the medical appointments article and the seniors' guide describe the arrangements: the hospital's entrance loop on the chauffeur's map, the chauffeur who walks the passenger to the clinic's door and waits or returns at the agreed time, the family member who booked it from another city and receives a text at each end, the wheelchair or the walker stowed. The hospital row article covers University Avenue's hospitals, where most of these orders end.

The social run

Saturday dinner in Yorkville, Sunday lunch at the daughter's in Oakville, Friday evening services and the walk home, the Wednesday bridge club: the social standing order is a fixed fare each way at a fixed time, or an hourly booking for the evening, with the same chauffeur who knows the restaurant's side street and the daughter's driveway. The Vaughan guide describes the Thornhill community's Saturday-night pattern and the anniversary and date night article the couple's version.

The shift worker and the fixed-hours employee

A nurse whose shift starts at 6:45 a.m. at Sunnybrook, a trader who must be at the desk at 6:30, a hotel's night manager who finishes at 7 — employees on fixed hours whose commute the transit system serves badly at those hours set up standing orders, sometimes on a company's account (the employee shuttle vs black car article works the arithmetic) and sometimes their own; the fare is the same fixed fare and the chauffeur is at the door at 6:05 every weekday.

The senior's week

An older passenger who no longer drives sets up the week: the pharmacy and the grocery on Tuesday, the hairdresser on Thursday, the bank and the bridge club on Friday, the church on Sunday — a standing order of several short trips with the same chauffeur, who carries the bags to the kitchen and knows which door; often booked by a son or daughter in another city who receives a text at each end. The seniors' guide covers the assistance and the privacy article the standard of a chauffeur who is in a passenger's home weekly.

Adjusting and pausing: a text

"No car Thursday." "Monday's flight is now AC 117 at 7:30." "Add a stop at the pharmacy on Tuesday." "Pause from July 1 to August 25." "The children are at their father's this week." Each is a text to dispatch's number or a reply to the weekly confirmation, and each is applied to the series without a new booking; a change to the pattern itself — a new school, a new shift — is a call. The weekly confirmation email lists the week's trips as the roster has them, and a passenger who reads it on Sunday evening catches anything wrong.

Billing

Each trip is charged as it occurs at the same fixed fare as a single booking — a standing order is not a discount, though a household or corporate account with volume may have a negotiated schedule — to the card on file or the corporate account's statement, where the trips appear as lines with the same cost centre; the corporate account billing article shows the statement and the deposits and payment article the card. A paused week is not charged; a cancelled trip inside the cutoff is charged on the cancellation policy's terms, and a standing order's holder who texts the evening before pays nothing.

The account that holds it

A standing order lives on an account — a household's or a company's — that records everything the chauffeur needs to know and the payer's card; the household account is set up in the same conversation as the order, and the corporate account holds the commuter's. The account is where the preferences live (the front seat, the newspaper, the temperature), where the children's ages are updated as they grow into the next seat, where the gate code changes, and where the payer and the passenger are kept straight when a daughter pays for a mother.

Reliability: a booking made once for a year

The standing order's virtue is that it is never late to be made. It is in the roster before the peaks fill — the December holidays, March break, the day after a storm — and its chauffeur is assigned before the fleet is committed; it is never subject to the same-day booking's availability question; and its chauffeur has driven the route enough times to know the construction and the shortcut. The how early to book article says regular travellers should have one, and the reason is the calendar.

What a standing order is not

It is not a contract with a penalty — a passenger ends it with a text and owes nothing beyond trips already taken. It is not a guarantee of a specific chauffeur every time — the roster's substitutes are told to the passenger in advance. It is not a discount by itself, though volume can earn a schedule. It is a booking that repeats, and its value is that the passenger stops thinking about it.

A worked week: one household

Monday 6:00 a.m.: the father to Terminal 1 (flight number texted Sunday). Monday to Friday 7:45: the two children to school, booster and harness in the car, the same chauffeur; 3:30: home or to the arena on Wednesdays. Tuesday 9:30: the grandmother, who lives with them, to a Sunnybrook appointment, the chauffeur to the clinic door and back at 11:30. Thursday 6:10 p.m.: the father met at Door A. Saturday 7:00 p.m.: the parents to a King West restaurant, home at 10:30 on an hourly. Twelve trips, one account, one Sunday-evening confirmation email, one text that week ("no school Friday — PD day"). Nobody booked anything.

Standing order quick reference

Setting one up

A call or an email to dispatch (the contact page has both), or a note in the engine on the first booking; the order is in the roster the same day and the first weekly confirmation arrives that evening.

Booking notes for a standing order

Three small things. Give the whole pattern at once — the days, the times, the exceptions you already know — so the roster holds a year, not a week. Name the person who will send the changes, and give dispatch their mobile; a standing order with two people texting contradictory changes is a standing order with a problem. And read the Sunday confirmation; it is the one email a week that prevents the Monday phone call.

Set up a standing order