Ground Transportation
All surface-based travel modes used to support business travel, including taxis, ride-sharing services, rental cars, trains, buses, and chauffeur transfers between airports, hotels, and business venues.
Ground transportation encompasses the full range of surface travel options used before, during, and after a business trip: transfers from home to the airport, inter-city rail journeys, rental cars at the destination, ride-hailing apps between meetings, and chauffeur services for executive travel. While flights represent the largest share of business travel spend for most organizations, ground transportation collectively accounts for a significant portion of total travel & expense (T&E) costs — and is often the least managed component, with significant leakage to unmanaged travel channels. Consolidating ground transport bookings through the corporate travel program provides visibility into this spend and ensures duty of care coverage for travelers on the ground.
Why it matters
Ground transportation is a frequent source of leakage in corporate travel programs because travelers often use personal apps and payment methods for taxis, ride-sharing, and local transit, then submit these as out-of-pocket expenses on their expense report. This fragmentation means travel managers have limited visibility into actual ground transport spend, cannot apply preferred supplier rates, and cannot track traveler location during the ground transit phase of a journey — a gap in duty of care coverage. Programs that bring ground transport into the managed booking channel gain both cost control and safety visibility.
How it works in practice
In a managed corporate travel program, ground transportation options are typically bookable through the same online booking tool (OBT) or travel management company (TMC) platform used for flights and hotels. Preferred suppliers — car rental companies, transfer operators, and rail providers — are negotiated at preferred rates and presented as default options. Corporate cards or virtual cards can be configured for automatic payment to preferred ground transport providers, eliminating out-of-pocket claims for routine transfers. For rail travel, some organizations manage this as a separate category with dedicated rail booking tools integrated into the core platform.
The takeaway
Ground transport is the unseized opportunity in most corporate travel programs. While organizations invest heavily in managing airline and hotel spend, ground transportation often slips through the cracks into unmanaged channels. Consolidating this category through the managed program reduces costs, improves data quality, and closes a meaningful gap in duty of care coverage — particularly in cities and regions where ride-hailing apps have replaced more formal transfer services.