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In NYC It's A Black Car. In LA It's....

Just a car service

Nomenclature

    noun
  1. the devising or choosing of names for things, especially in a science or other discipline.
    “the Linnean system of zoological nomenclature”

What’s the difference between a black car service and a town car service?

The only difference is where the person talking about it is from. New Yorkers have used the term “black car service” for many years. Somehow, the trend never made it to the west coast. Californians really have no unified terms for what we do.

There is an assumption that a limo service is just one thing. This is patently not true. There are many types of limo companies that bet bulked in to the same terms and people just assume we are all the same. We’ll cover them below, in the meantime review our limo rental services if you need to book an LA limo.

Some companies

have fleets of sedans and SUVs while others have fleets solely comprised of stretch limos and party buses. Still others have fleets comprised solely of Mercedes Sprinter vans and some have more of a variation of all of the above. We would consider these full service limo companies.

The other big variation in the types of companies that offer liveried transportation (the actual term) is whether the do retail service or wholesale service. HTCL has always been a retail service. That means we are in direct contact with our clients and potential clients and do client acquisition on our own through many different avenues including our website and pages like this one. 

Other vendors

are more wholesale or ‘fulfillment’ companies that have vehicles and drivers but no marketing arm. Their service may bas as good or better than some retail companies but they solely take trips as what we in the limo business call “farm in”.

This means that they deal only with retail limo companies and provide fulfilment for any trips that the retailers can’t cover on their own.

What are the different sizes of livery companies?

Within the terms we have outlined above, there are also several sizes of limo company. Some may be retailers and some may be wholesalers. Here is a short list of the types of companies we have run across in our time in the industry:

  • Dispatch Service Provider “DSP”
    A DSP is a company with no vehicles or drivers. The simply aggregate business and use other, licensed TCP companies for fulfillment. Most states including California do not allow this type of service although one could get around that by owning and maintaining at least one commercial vehicle with a TCP number.
  • Owner Operator or “OO”
    These are small companies with one car and one driver. 
  • Independent Operator or “IO”
    These are also small companies but they usually have a few different vehicles and a small number of drivers. 
  • Small Fleet Companies
    This title speaks for itself. The sweet spot for this type of company is about 5 vehicles. If the operator is smart, these can be incredibly profitable enterprises especially if they continue to maintain a small fleet and use IOs or OOs for overflow. What usually happens is these companies want to be larger and their overhead kills them.
  • Medium Fleet Companies
    Running from around 10 to 15 vehicles, these companies can have a tough time of things as they need a lot of staff to maintain thier business. At this lever you must have a dispatch office with staff, a parking lot big enough to house your entire fleet and in-house vehicle maintenance staff.
  • Large Fleet Companies
    These larger companies are heavily invested and have 20 cars and up. Some have as many as 50 or 100 vehicles and all of the ancillary infrastructure to support their business as well as a corporate management team and an outside sales team that works on commission. These companies will usually be quite expensive for the end user as their overhead is so high.
  • National or International Companies
    These are the big players in livery such as Empire CLS, Carey International, Boston Coach etc. They have offices or large affiliate offices in major cities in the US and around the world. Some are better than others but they all have very high rates to support their massive operations.

Los Angeles Car Service

Choose from a wide variety of vehicles:

Hollywood Town Car and Limousine has the vehicles you need.

Full Scale Customer Service

From our 24-7 booking team to our tracking technology to show you where your vehicles are to flight tracking while you‘re in our limos, we make sure you know where everyone is all the time.

Rather than a DIY transportation solution, Hollywood Town Car and Limousine offers end-to-end, door-to-door service, including any side stops you want to make and even shopping trips to Los Angeles’s legendary locations.

Los Angeles Car Service

Choose from a wide variety of vehicles:

Hollywood Town Car and Limousine has the vehicles you need.

Full Scale Customer Service

From our 24-7 booking team to our tracking technology to show you where your vehicles are to flight tracking while you‘re in our limos, we make sure you know where everyone is all the time.

Rather than a DIY transportation solution, Hollywood Town Car and Limousine offers end-to-end, door-to-door service, including any side stops you want to make and even shopping trips to Los Angeles’s legendary locations.

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