Passenger Code of Conduct

What we expect of you, and what you can expect of us

A trip with us works both ways. We expect a driver to arrive on time, in a roadworthy vehicle, and to treat you with courtesy for the whole of the trip, from the moment he reports at the pick-up point to the moment he hands your luggage down at the drop. You are equally a guest in a vehicle somebody else is responsible for, and we expect the same courtesy back, towards the driver, towards our office, and towards anyone else travelling with you under the same booking.

We set this out in writing because most of what makes a trip go well or badly has nothing to do with the vehicle itself. An outstation drive of six or eight hours, a wedding car held for a full day of functions, or an early corporate pick-up before the city has woken up all put a driver and a traveller together for longer than a short city ride does. A shared, written understanding of what each side owes the other keeps that time comfortable, whichever side of the front seat you happen to be sitting on.

What you can expect of us

a driver who reports on time, in a clean and roadworthy vehicle, who is courteous for the whole of the trip and not only at the start of it, and an office that takes a genuine concern seriously the moment you raise it.

What we expect of you

the same courtesy in return, towards the driver, towards anyone in our office you deal with, and towards anyone else travelling with you under the same booking, along with the punctuality, the safety cooperation and the lawful conduct set out on the rest of this page.

Where your booking carries more than one traveller, a wedding party, a corporate group, or simply family and friends sharing an outstation car, this page applies to everyone travelling under it, not only to whoever made the booking or whoever is paying the invoice. If you have booked on behalf of others, it is worth sharing what is on this page with them before the trip starts, particularly the sections on respect for our people and safety instructions, so nobody in the vehicle is meeting the expectation for the first time on the road.

Respect for our drivers and staff

Our drivers are at work, and so is anyone else supporting your trip: our office staff, and any vendor staff assigned to your booking, a decoration team on a wedding, a helper loading luggage onto a coach, or a second driver on a longer outstation run, among them. Treat every one of them with the courtesy you would expect at your own workplace, from a colleague, a client, or anyone whose help you are relying on to get something done well.

In practice, that ordinary workplace courtesy comes down to a handful of things:

• Address the driver and staff by name where you know it, and politely where you do not, the way you would address anyone doing a job for you.
• Do not raise your voice, use abusive language, or make a threatening gesture towards a driver or a staff member, whatever the provocation.
• Do not ask a driver to do something unconnected with your booking as though it were owed to you along with the trip.
• Give a driver the same patience with heavy traffic, a wrong turn corrected, or an unfamiliar address that you would want extended to you if the roles were reversed.
• Let a driver take the rest and the meal breaks a long trip needs; a driver asked to keep going through a break he needs is being treated as a convenience rather than as a person.

This holds for the whole of your booking, not only while the vehicle is moving: at pick-up, during a halt on the way, while a driver is waiting for you outside a function or a meeting, and at the drop. A driver standing outside your gate for twenty minutes because your flight was delayed is still at work for the whole of that twenty minutes, and the courtesy this section asks for applies to it exactly as it applies to the hours the vehicle is actually on the road.

Zero tolerance for harassment, abuse and discrimination

We do not tolerate harassment, verbal or physical abuse, intimidation, or discrimination on any ground, caste, religion, gender or disability among them, directed at our drivers, our staff, or at another traveller sharing your vehicle. Our full position on discrimination, including what it looks like when it is directed at a customer rather than at our people, is set out at /legal/non-discrimination.

In practice this covers more than a raised voice. It covers a demand for a different driver made on the ground of his caste, his religion or his community, a derogatory remark about a helper’s background, a refusal to let a female staff member handle your luggage or your booking on account of her being a woman, and any gesture, comment or joke aimed at a driver’s or a staff member’s identity rather than at the job they are doing. None of this needs to escalate into something physical to fall within this policy; the ground it is made on is what matters, not how loudly it is said.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 defines sexual harassment broadly: unwelcome physical contact, a demand or request for a sexual favour, a sexually coloured remark, showing pornography, or any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Our drivers are at work for the whole of your trip, in a vehicle that is, for that duration, their workplace, and the Act’s protection travels with them into it.

Our drivers are at work. Sexual harassment of any of our people, or of any other traveller, is a serious matter and is dealt with under our POSH Policy, which extends to the vehicle as an extension of the workplace, and which provides a complaint route for customers, not only for employees.

This works in both directions, and it is worth being plain about that. It protects our drivers and staff from harassment by a customer or by anyone travelling under a customer’s booking, and it protects you, equally, from harassment by a driver or by anyone working on our behalf. Neither side of that is treated as the less serious one, and neither is handled informally.

How a complaint of sexual harassment is raised and handled, including the Internal Committee that hears it under the Act, is set out in full at /legal/posh-policy. That page is where the process lives; this page states the standard we hold everyone to and stops there.

Punctuality

Keep to the pick-up time and place you have confirmed with us. A driver who arrives on time and then waits is a cost we absorb up to a point, and a cost that is passed on beyond it. The waiting time you get free, the charge that applies after it, and what counts as a no-show are all set out at /legal/waiting-and-no-show.

Punctuality matters here for a reason that has nothing to do with being strict about the clock. A driver confirmed for your pick-up has, in most cases, another duty either before or after yours, an outstation run has only so many daylight hours to make a hill road in comfort, and an airport pick-up is timed against a flight rather than against the hour on your booking. A long wait at one end of your trip is rarely absorbed without a cost somewhere else in the driver’s day, which is exactly why the free waiting window and the charge beyond it exist rather than an open-ended wait.

If you are running late, tell us or the driver as soon as you know, rather than at the confirmed time itself. A delay we hear about in advance can usually be managed: a later pick-up worked into the driver’s day, an outstation departure re-timed, a flight tracked so the driver adjusts on his own. A delay we hear about only when the driver calls to ask where you are has far fewer options left.

Airport and railway pick-ups

these are timed against your flight or train, not against the clock alone. If your flight is delayed or lands early, tell us the moment you know, so the driver’s wait is planned around the revised time rather than the one on your original booking.

Outstation and multi-day trips

a late start on the first day is usually the day that has to make up the lost time on the road later, at a cost to the whole itinerary rather than to a single pick-up. Being ready at the confirmed time keeps the rest of the plan, and the driver’s hours, exactly as quoted.

Wedding and event bookings

a car held for a function with a fixed start, a baraat or a muhurat among them, is often one of several duties running to the same clock that day. A wait beyond what was planned for can affect more bookings than your own.

Safety instructions

Follow the driver’s reasonable safety instructions for the whole of the trip:

• Wear the seatbelt fitted at your seat, for the whole of the trip, in the back as much as in the front.
• Keep a young child secured, in a child seat if you are carrying one, and never on your lap for a highway stretch.
• Do not open a door on the side facing traffic, and keep hands, arms and heads inside the vehicle while it is moving.
• Do not distract the driver with an argument, a raised voice, or an insistence on a route he judges unsafe.

A driver who judges a road, a crossing or the weather unsafe may slow down, take an alternative route, or decline to proceed, and that judgement is his to make, not yours to overrule. Fog on the Grand Trunk Road on a winter morning, a flooded underpass in the monsoon, or a hill road to Shimla or Dehradun after dark are exactly the situations this exists for: the driver in the seat can see and feel the road in a way nobody in the back of the vehicle can, and a slower, safer trip is always the one we stand behind over a faster, riskier one.

Do not ask a driver to exceed the speed limit, to jump a signal, to overtake in a place he judges unsafe, to drive beyond his permitted hours, or to take any action that would put the vehicle, himself or anyone else at risk. We stand behind a driver who declines such a request, whatever the reason given for asking it, a late flight, a tight schedule, or simply being in a hurry.

Lawful conduct

Do not carry narcotics, firearms, explosives or any other weapon, or any goods prohibited or restricted under Indian law, in the vehicle. Do not use the vehicle for an unlawful purpose, and do not ask a driver to help you evade a lawful checkpoint, a police post or a toll barrier.

We are a passenger transport business, not a courier service, so please do not ask a driver to carry a parcel or a consignment on your behalf as though the vehicle were one. If a highway check post or a police checkpoint stops the vehicle for a routine check, that is a lawful part of the trip and not something either of you should try to avoid; cooperate with it the way the driver is required to.

A prohibited item found in the vehicle can get it seized and put the driver’s permit, and the driver himself, at risk under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and the law governing whatever was found, so this protects your own trip as much as it protects us. A seized vehicle on an outstation trip does not merely end that day’s duty; it can leave you stranded well short of where you were going, which is a cost to you long before it is a cost to us.

Damage to the vehicle

You are liable for damage you or anyone travelling with you causes to the vehicle: a torn seat, a cracked window, a burn mark, a stain from food or a spilled drink, or scuffing from luggage loaded without care. Genuine wear from a trip run as booked, dust on the floor mats after a rural drop, road grime after a hill trip, is ours to bear; damage caused by a traveller is not.

Where a booking carries more than one traveller, liability for damage under this section follows the booking, the same way the rest of this page does: it does not matter which of you caused it, only that it happened under your booking. Where damage is found, it is best raised and agreed between you and the driver before the vehicle leaves at the end of the trip, so there is no dispute afterwards about when or how it happened.

The fixed schedule of cleaning and damage charges that applies, and our full position on eating, smoking and what a driver may ask you to stop doing inside the vehicle, is published at /legal/in-vehicle-conduct.

Removal from a service

Most trips need none of this. The overwhelming majority of bookings run from pick-up to drop without a single thing on this page ever coming into it. Where a traveller’s conduct crosses a real line, though, we may end the service before the trip is complete, and this section sets out what that actually means rather than leaving it as a bare threat.

This is not a decision a driver reaches for over a disagreement, a raised voice that is settled a minute later, or a complaint about the route. It is reserved for the four grounds set out in the clause below: conduct that endangers or seriously disrupts everyone else in the vehicle, intoxication to the point of being a danger to yourself or others in a moving vehicle, harassment of any person under the terms set out earlier on this page, or an offence committed or attempted in the vehicle. Where it is safe and practical to do so, a driver raises what he is facing with our control point before acting, so the decision is not his alone to carry. Where the danger is immediate, and there is no time for that call, he is authorised to act first and explain afterwards.

We may remove a traveller from a service, without refund, where their conduct endangers or seriously disrupts others, where they are intoxicated to the point of danger, where they harass any person, or where they commit or attempt an offence. Where this happens, onward travel is at your own cost and we will assist you to make safe arrangements.

In practice, this is what follows. The vehicle is brought to the next place it is genuinely safe to stop, not left standing on a moving carriageway or an isolated stretch with nobody around. Your belongings are handed over to you before the driver leaves. We do not simply drive off and leave you to work out the rest on your own: our office stays reachable to help you arrange safe onward travel, whether that is calling someone to collect you, arranging alternative transport, or simply confirming where you are to whoever is coming for you. What we cannot do is continue the trip you booked, and the fare already paid for it is not refunded, because the vehicle and the driver’s time for that trip were committed and cannot be resold once the trip has started.

This is the most serious step on this page, and it is meant to be rare. As set out in Consequences, below, our response to conduct that falls short of this page is ordinarily proportionate to what happened; removal from a service exists for the clearest cases, not as a first response to an ordinary disagreement.

Reporting misconduct

If a driver, a member of our staff, or anyone working on our behalf falls short of this page, tell us. The same applies where another traveller sharing your vehicle, on a group or wedding booking for instance, behaves towards you in a way that falls short of it: this page is not only about what we expect of you, it is also about what you are entitled to expect from everyone else travelling under the same booking.

Sexual harassment

raised through the route set out at /legal/posh-policy, which exists specifically for this and sits alongside our Grievance Officer rather than instead of one.

Everything else on this page

a driver’s conduct, a staff member’s conduct, or another traveller’s conduct towards you under the same booking, raised with our Grievance Officer at /grievance-redressal.

Write to us, call us, or send a WhatsApp message; every channel reaches the same desk, sachin@om-travels.in or +91 99966 69190. We acknowledge a complaint under this page within 24 hours and look into it within 15 days, and the full escalation ladder, with named officers and our response timelines, is at /grievance-redressal.

Raising a genuine complaint does not count against you. It does not affect a booking you already hold, it is not noted against you anywhere we would consult before taking your next enquiry, and it is not a reason we would refuse you a future one. The same protection runs the other way: a driver who reports a genuine concern about a passenger’s conduct is not penalised for having raised it either.

Consequences

Our response is proportionate to what happened. Not every shortfall against this page ends the same way, and treating a first, minor lapse the same as a serious or repeated one would be neither fair nor useful; what follows is the scale we actually apply, not an exhaustive list of every situation it could cover:

• A first or minor issue gets a warning, from the driver at the time or from our office afterwards.
• Repeated or more serious conduct is grounds for us to decline a future booking from you.
• Conduct that amounts to a criminal offence, theft, assault, vandalism and harassment among them, is referred to the police, and we cooperate with the investigation, in addition to any route available under our POSH Policy.

A first or minor issue

an isolated moment, a sharp word exchanged and later regretted, a minor discourtesy noted by the driver, handled directly at the time or followed up by our office afterwards. This is the ordinary case, and it does not follow you onto a future booking.

Repeated or more serious conduct

a pattern rather than a single moment, or a single incident serious enough to stand on its own without amounting to an offence. Declining a future booking is not a step we take lightly, and it is used where the standard set out on this page has already been explained once and not kept to.

Conduct that amounts to a criminal offence

theft, assault, vandalism and harassment among them, is handled outside this page entirely: it goes to the police, we cooperate fully with whatever the investigation needs from us, and where the conduct is sexual harassment, the route at /legal/posh-policy runs alongside a police referral rather than in place of it.

Every route on this page starts the same way: tell us. Whether the concern is yours to raise about a driver, or a driver’s to raise about a passenger, what happens next depends on what happened, not on who raised it first.