How to run a Toronto roadshow without losing a meeting to traffic

Published 2026-08-05 · Corporate

A roadshow is a timetable

The mistake is booking a roadshow as a series of individual rides. Each one is quoted separately, each one needs a new chauffeur briefed from scratch, and the moment a meeting runs ten minutes long the whole sequence collapses. Booked hourly with one vehicle and one chauffeur, the day absorbs an overrun without anybody making a phone call.

Build buffers where the road actually is

Toronto traffic is not uniformly bad; it is specifically bad in known places at known times. The Gardiner eastbound after 3pm, the 401 across the top of the city almost any weekday, the DVP in either direction at peak. A schedule that assumes twenty minutes between any two downtown addresses will work at 11am and fail at 5pm. We drive the route the day before where the schedule is tight.

Give the chauffeur the itinerary, not the next address

A chauffeur who has the whole day in front of them can pre-position between stops, find the loading door instead of circling, and tell you at 2pm that the 4pm stop needs to move. A chauffeur who is told each destination as it happens can only react.

Where to put the guest

If you are collecting a client, put them in the car with the most rear legroom and the quietest cabin - a first class sedan rather than a business one. It is a small uplift on a day already costing a great deal, and it is the part of the day the guest actually remembers.

Have a contingency for the car itself

Vehicles break, and a roadshow with a dead car is a roadshow with dead meetings. Ask your operator what happens if the vehicle fails at stop three. The answer should involve a named dispatcher and a replacement inside thirty minutes in the core, not an apology.