Black car service in India: fixed fares, executive sedans and a chauffeur who is expected

The fleet

Which black cars are dispatched, and how to choose between them

The benchmark vehicle for a black car booking is the executive sedan: the Mercedes-Benz E-Class or BMW 5 Series, three passengers with two comfortable, two large bags. It is the right car for an airport transfer with one or two people, for a day of meetings and for the dinner run. Above it sits the luxury sedan, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or BMW 7 Series, for a principal who wants the long-wheelbase rear cabin; the luxury chauffeur page and the S-Class page go into that class.

For three or four passengers, luggage for a week or roads that leave the expressway, the luxury SUV is the better black car: the Toyota Fortuner and Land Cruiser and the Mercedes-Benz GLS carry five with four comfortable and four bags, and they are what the desk sends to the hills. For a family or a small team the premium MPV, the Toyota Innova Hycross or Kia Carnival, carries six with five comfortable and five bags at a lower rate than the SUV, and it is the workhorse of Indian executive travel for a reason: it is quiet, it takes the speed breakers, and the second row slides. The fleet page lists every class with seat and bag counts.

Colour, for the record, is black or a dark metallic across the executive and luxury classes. The MPVs and group vans are white or silver, because that is how Indian manufacturers build them for the commercial market, and the desk will say so rather than pretend otherwise.

Where

Black car service in 32 Indian cities and at every international airport

The dispatch bases are the 32 cities on the cities page, from the four metros to Udaipur, Amritsar, Dehradun and Guwahati, and the pickup points include every international airport in the country. The busiest black-car corridors are the ones any business traveller will recognise: Delhi T3 to Aerocity, Connaught Place and Gurugram; Mumbai T2 to BKC and Nariman Point; Bengaluru T2 down the Ballari Road elevated expressway to MG Road and out to Whitefield; Hyderabad from Shamshabad up the expressway to Banjara Hills and round the Outer Ring Road to HITEC City.

Each city has its own black car page with the districts, hotels and stations on the run: Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur and Goa. Between cities, the city-to-city page prices the expressway journeys as fixed fares, and the charter day covers anything longer.

Outside India, the same booking is passed to a Limousine Association International affiliate in 56 countries, and a client who books a black car in Delhi can book one in Dubai, London or Singapore from the same desk and receive one invoice.

The chauffeur

The standard behind the black car

A vehicle is only half of the service. Every RUTZ.IN chauffeur holds a commercial licence and a state transport badge, has cleared police verification and a background check, is briefed on the passenger before the pickup and is measured on the things that matter to a business passenger: on time at the kerb, the right route, no phone calls in the cabin, no questions about the meeting, luggage handled without being asked. The vehicles are commercially permitted and insured, serviced on a schedule and presented clean, and a passenger is entitled to see the papers.

That standard is the reason RUTZ.IN is listed in the Limousine Worldwide Directory and is a member of Limousine Association International, and it is the reason the desk prefers the phrase black car service to limo service: it describes the product exactly. For the occasions that do want a stretch limousine or a vintage car, the limo service page covers what is available and how it is quoted.