Tracking Your Trucking Company Drivers

        No matter what your trucking company is hauling, being able to track drivers can increase efficiency and help give your hauling company an edge on the competition. With so many different methods of data collection, it can be hard to decipher what data give the most value to you and your customers. Dispatch Commodity has created multiple ways to convey this data to not only your back-office staff but to your customers as well. We are going to breakdown the many ways that we collect this data and explain the benefits we can give you and your trucking company. 

Driver Tracking with Map Views 

• Customers want to have the most up to date information for their orders whether it is crude oil, propane, wastewater, or other bulk commodity products. they want to see load data as it happens. One of our most common requests is to give a customer access to the order data and order route data. Dispatch Commodity can give select access to users to view not only general order data i.e., load amounts and arrival/departure time stamps, but also GPS information in real time.  We collect GPS information from the DC Driver application when certain events occur and after a system defined amount of time has passed. We also allow users to set a geofence around pick up and drop off points that will trigger data collection. So, if a customer wants to see this info, they simply login into the web portal and have direct access to a map view of their order as it is completed. 

• For back-office staff, driver tracking is even more important especially for driver dispatchers. We realize this information needs to be live for the optimal dispatching based on driver location and availability, so we created the Driver Map feature. The Driver Map is a customizable map view that displays live driver locations and availability while also allowing loads to be dispatched all in the same map view. This means dispatchers can dispatch loads on the fly as they track their drivers.

Driver Tracking for Auditing 

• When using our DC Driver application, driver location is constantly tracked. Most of our customers really do not need to view the GPS data for every single point throughout a drivers’ day but when something is in question the more data the better. For example, sometimes drivers are paid based on demurrage on a pickup or drop off and any time a large amount of demurrage is billed out most customers will want extra detail as to why it occurred. Any lease that is set up with a geofence will automatically detect when a driver enters the geofence. This trigger is used to signify that a driver has arrived on location. Our DC Driver app also captures GPS data when certain events occur. An example would be when a driver enters their arrive time or prints out their pickup ticket. If Dispatch Commodity detects that a driver has manually entered their arrive time in a location that is not within the pickup or drop of geofence, the load is flagged and sent to our Wait Audit page. This allows the back-office staff to investigate any billing issues before any invoices are sent to customers.

Driver Tracking for Deadhead Reduction 

• With all the location data available in Dispatch Commodity our system can suggest the next dispatch to be sent to your driver. Our software will suggest the next pick up from the list of available orders you have created that will calculate the least amount of deadhead miles to maximize your daily load amount. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules and sometimes customers will want loads picked up in a certain order based on priority. This too can be added to orders in Dispatch Commodity to make sure you not only get the minimal deadhead, but also get loads completed in the order that you and your customers require. 

Driver Tracking with Order Photos 

• Sometimes having a GPS coordinate trail is not enough for customers that want proof of delivery or pick up. Dispatch Commodity allows your drivers to capture to 8 photos and/or document scans that relate to each load they haul. These images also collect a date/timestamp and the GPS coordinates when they are taken by the device our DC Driver application is operating on. These images can contain anything from scans of ticket print outs/receipts or simply just a snapshot of the pickup/drop off location. This information can eliminate any confusion when it comes time to invoice a customer. 

        Driver location can affect everything from driver dispatching to billing and payroll so it is vital to make sure your bulk commodity software can track your drivers accurately. Make sure you give your trucking company the best software solution and schedule a demo with Dispatch Commodity today!