The standard in our area for most dealers is first (30) thirty minutes out in the morning and last (30) in the evening is on us, all other time is paid, a fair trade for driving the van home. Work time starts at 8:00 am and ends at 4:30 pm. If we leave the house at 7:30, and the first stop is 1 hour away, 7:30 to 8:00 is on us, 8:00 to 8:30 is paid. Same coming home, finish up and have paperwork signed by 4:00 pm and hit the road. In this instance, being an hour out, anything after 4:00pm is overtime.
We figure that if we worked a job doing something else we would have to drive back and forth anyway and provide our own vehicle and pay the expenses. With fuel prices and wear and tear on your personal vehicle it's almost like making a couple of $$ per hour extra at the end of the year so we are happy to do it.
Driving to a customers location is just as much part of the job as putting the wrenches to a machine, that's why it's called "Road Service",
the idea is to keep from hauling the machine into the shop for small service jobs. The customer is being charged driving time plus trip charges and some places charge mileage and a "Zone" charge, so it ain't like they can't pay the Tech for his driving time.
Any Co. that expects their people to drive for nothing, when they are doing all this charging, is a "Chicken Feces" outfit !! This is one of the reasons why you can't get good people and why there are few "Newbies" coming into the business.