OK Transporters, this app thing.

there will be apps that combine apps

 

I do know that the Carsarrive app wasn't thought up on a whim. Their shipper customers ie; Toyota, Volkswagen etc have demanded it.

 

Think Toyota Financial wrote United Roads. The print at set up is written specifically for them anyway.

The other issue I have with the app crap is it is your phone that is going to get wrecked if you are working in the rain, snow, inclement weather.
Photos of everything, VIN scan etc. I know a few of the current phones are IP67 rated (water &/or dust resistant). But really do not want to buy
a new phone because some idiot living in his Mama's basement wrote a stupid app.
Have always left the phone in the truck when loading because if on a clip or in a pocket, can scratch a car when getting in/out
while on the trailer. But what would a developer know about that?

 

Agreed. I aint sayin it is necessarily all roses and flowers. Just sayin.

 

You have an excellent point. That being said, I'll compare this to when UPS went to the tablets they carry. It was a major pushback by the Drivers, but now they love it. And yes I know, UPS drivers don't have to buy the tablet.
The VIN scan at p/u and photos can save your ### from a dealer claim.

 

If they want their app on my phone, they can PAY to have it on there or raise their rates to $1 per mile.

If everyone would let those cars sit and tell them why, maybe they'll get this stupid idea out of their heads.

Who gets billed why the app screws up your phone?

 

Anyone certainly has the right to not load anyone's phone app. Why would any app screw up your phone? I've got dozens on mine, games, music, golf tee times, paypal, etc, etc none of them have ever messed up my phone.
Oh and by the way, phone apps are the way of the future, I hate to tell you. Nobody is getting rid of them. But it is certainly one's own choice to cease business because of a phone app.

 

Stan, we are in the middle of the Ready Auto Transport 1Dispatch app roll-out with Manheim. It has been challenging to say the least. I have other problems with the changes at Manheim since we had a direct contract with them for the last 12 years and now everything has to go thru RAT at a cost of 10% to us, plus this app is delaying our drivers. Some of the delay is from learning how to use it, other delays come from us working in remote/rural areas where there is little or no data service, it doesn't want to connect or load the jobs or the condition report functions without data signals. Another issue we are having with the app based dispatch platform, it does not support account specific condition reports yet so we are still doing paper reports on Fords and Santander vehicles, causing even more delay. I do like the date/time/location stamp, it covers your back when the dealer or repo yard refuses to sign your CR, but it is time consuming to scan and photo.

The rest of the issues I have deal with the dispatch platform, RAT doesn't give us enough info upfront to accept or decline the job without loading the full job first, nor do they include info such as AWD, crew cab, etc like Manheim used to, making us use a VIN decoder to get this info. I would like to see a VIN decoder built into the RAT app, and would like the rate confirmation blacked out when we send a copy of the transport report to the repo yard we are picking up from. I do like the paperless concept, but I need to control what gets sent out via email when I am sending paperwork out to third parties. Along the lines of the dispatch platform built into the 1Dispatch app, they still do not have a "split run" capacity, meaning having one driver pick up the vehicle but another deliver it on to the final destination, we do this often and right now we made a work around by creating a fake driver profile and dispatching these type of routes to this "driver", which all all drivers share the credentials to log into, but it is a pain. My last issue with RAT is the billing now has to be completed within 48 hours, we used to bill every Sunday when contracted directly with Manheim, now we have to collect the paper condition reports and other proof of delivery from our drivers daily so we can submit it the next day. This along with the extra labor involved in dispatching from the web interface to each driver profile for the app has increased our office load by several hours a week. We used to get our pickup orders emailed to us from Manheim, pick out the pages for each driver and forward them to the driver, an entire days dispatching could be done in 15 minutes at the end of the day, now we get alerts all day and have to respond to them throughout the day, hard to do when you are on the road.

In concept, it is a good idea but needs some refinement. At least the RAT/1Dispatch app does. It seems they have designed it for the one truck operator, not the multi-truck small fleet. I know the frustration carries over to the Manheim transportation office as well, they are doing double the data entry right now and their interface is cumbersome as well.

As for roll out to our drivers, it has cost us two new smart phones and a tablet, they didn't have compatible phones and we didn't feel right making employees buy new hardware for a change beyond their control, so we decided to provide a company phone or tablet for each driver. Everyone has picked up the use of the app easily, but the time delay hurts when you run local pickup and delivery routes daily, we already was close on our 14 hour clock and this had added about 30-45 minutes per day.