It is an operator's term rather than a passenger's, and most people encounter it only when they ask why a long journey away from a city is quoted differently from the same distance towards one. The answer is almost always the empty half of the movement, and it is worth understanding because it explains several pricing patterns that otherwise look arbitrary.
This entry defines the term, explains where the empty miles come from, and describes how they are treated. It also covers the practical steps that reduce them, since a booking arranged well can eliminate a good deal of unproductive running for everybody involved.
Where the empty miles come from
A car does not begin its day at your door. It has to reach the collection point from wherever it or the chauffeur started, which is the positioning leg. After the drop-off it has to get somewhere useful again, which may be back to base, on to the next booking, or to a legal place to wait. Neither leg carries a passenger.
The proportion varies enormously by journey. A transfer that starts and ends within a busy city may involve very little empty running, because the car has work either side. A one-way run to a remote address at an unsociable hour can involve as much unpaid distance as paid, and the quotation has to reflect the whole movement to be sustainable.
Where the term comes from
Deadhead is borrowed from American railroading and trucking, where a locomotive or lorry running empty to reposition was said to be deadheading. Airlines use it too, for crew travelling as passengers to reach the aircraft they will operate. The chauffeur trade adopted it along with much of its dispatch vocabulary.
British operators also say dead mileage, empty running or positioning mileage, and all four mean the same thing. On an itemised corporate account you may see it as a positioning line; on a private quotation it is more usually absorbed into a single figure rather than separated out, since the total is what a passenger is choosing between.
How bookings can reduce it
Nobody benefits from a car driving around empty, and a well-structured booking cuts the amount considerably. The items below are the ones that make a practical difference, and most of them are simply a matter of telling an operator the whole shape of what you need rather than one leg at a time.
- Booking both directions together rather than as two separate jobs
- Choosing wait and return where the gap at the destination is short
- Giving as much notice as you can, so cars can be sequenced sensibly
- Grouping several appointments into one as directed booking
- Flagging flexible timings, which allow better routing between jobs
- Naming the exact collection door, so no time is lost circling
What it is not
Deadhead mileage is not waiting time. Waiting is the chauffeur held stationary at your destination; deadheading is the vehicle moving with nobody in it. The two are quoted differently because they consume different things: one is time, the other is time, fuel and distance together.
It is also not a surcharge added after the event. Where empty running affects a journey, it is already inside the figure you agreed before booking. Nothing about the route appears afterwards as an extra, and if a quotation surprises you, asking which part of the movement drives it is a fair and easily answered question.
