How much do you expect from your dispatcher?

Depending on the Company, most Fleets use some form of communications like Qualcomm (Satelite), Radio (RF)Dispatch or Cellular Based Communication , Some Dispatchers are merely communications personel. There are Fleet Managers, They have a responsibility to manage a fleet and individual Drivers. And then there are Load Planners, They actually perform the task of coordinating pick ups and deliverys, they need current HOS from your log to sucessfully navigate the Truck. Poor planning on the Driver, the Dispatch and the Load Planner is a recipe for poor service and utilization. Sitting too long or Running out of Hours only hurts the Driver and the Company.

I have seen a lot of turn over at my company over the past 5 years and it was most likely due to poor communication between the driver, dispatcher(FM) and Load Planner.

Of course the Log is there to prevent driver abuse and the driver should use it to manage his time and report it daily to the Fleet Manager and Load Planner.

As a company driver, I get paid mostly by the miles I am available to run. But there are other Factors. My company has Full Truckload freight that Runs Coast to Coast OTR and the Average Haul is over 1200 miles. We can get up to 3600 miles a week based on 60 hours on duty line 3 and average 60 mph. Most of the time we run so that the truck will not be forced to shutdown, the load planners have been running our logs up to 70 hours in 8 days ( bumping the 8 day recap ) until we go off-duty for a 34 or hometime. Making money usually requires 21 days out being on time and Keeping the Boss happy!

 

IMO Melton the management team and the driver must share the same mission goals...and they don't. Management wants to cover the loads so they can earn money and get more loads. Drivers mission is the same here.

The twist is that management does what the customer says, not what's practical or legal . Truck management is very resistant to re-molding the customer out of fear of losing them.

The driver will be forced to be practical and legal shortly or he won't be able to drive anymore.

I agree with you, the driver will have to be more assertive and know his game. Dispatch is going to have to bend and trust his drivers to be professional.

Your asking to toss out years of distrust between the two though......

 

Well, here are my thoughts... your percentage of late loads is going to go up---a lot.

I am the golden boy at the office, or at least I used to be. I am the one who was ALWAYS on time. Since the DOT came in and cracked the whip, that has changed---my stellar on-time record is starting to falter.

We run regional short haul---one load a day. I need just about every one of my 14 hours, and then some, to complete my runs. Where I used to plan to be at the receiver an hour early, now I can't---I can't afford a minute of wasted time some days. I have to cut it as close as possible to conserve logbook time, and it's making me late.

Take yesterday for instance...

I had a late evening appointment at the receiver. In order to leave an 8 hour break in between arriving at my destination and the actual appointment, my day started at 2:45am. I figured on at least an hour unloading and then I'd be have the hours to drive on up to where I was loading.

Meh... didn't happen that way. Seven and a half hours after arriving at the receiver, they finally had me unloaded. Which made me late to the shipper and, in turn, is going to make me cut it awfully close on getting to the receiver tomorrow.

Everything with a time-stamp has to match my logs. Although I am #### good at optimizing a trip to squeeze every last mile out of my hours, any little glitch in the plan, like slow *** receivers, traffic, etc. kills my on-time performance.

So, you're either going to have to choose between under-utilized equipment and on-time loads, or maximum efficiency and late loads.

 

Better get used to it.
The whole industry will be on EOBR's in the not-too-distant future.

One plus to an onboard system like Peoplenet is that it gives dispatch real-time visibility into a driver's hours.
So outfits that use these systems will be better able to assign loads to drivers.

What will happen, too is that you'll see more regional jobs where the driver out 6 days and then home for a 34-hour reset.
This way, there's less planning around a driver's hours.
I think you'll also see more local/hourly daycab jobs as well.

 

Tell me where and when to pick up, where the load goes and the time of appointment. If I can't do it, I'll let you know.

I will do my own routing.

If I have to drop a trailer, tell me where there is an empty I can grab. DO NOT expect me to bobtail all over hell and gone, (at my own expense) looking for an empty trailer.

There now. Isn't that simple?

 

I am regional and I'm usually home on the weekends, so worrying about the 70 is not a concern. But the fact still remains that either our equipment is under-utilized, to make sure we have time to make an appointment, or we are showing up in the nick of time or late. Nothing ever goes perfectly.

The letter of the law was written for a perfect world where shippers and receivers never take more than thirty minutes to load or unload, and there's always a hundred loads to choose from within 5 miles of your drop.

 

I'll run your loads. Give me something and if I have the hours to run it and do the trip, I will. Send me the info I need and let me do my thing. You've done your job, now let me do mine.

However, if there's nothing available or you talked with the load planner and you two don't expect to have anything until that night or possibly tomorrow, let a driver know! One thing I absolutely hate is to be left hanging somewhere. If there's nothing available, let me know so I can go find some place to park, eat and sleep until something does come available. Don't leave me sitting somewhere because you don't want to tell me "nothing available right now, find a safe place to park for awhile."

So how much do I expect? I just expect to be dispatched on loads, authorization for tolls if the route has tolls, required trip info, directions and fuel stop if needed, and if anything changes or isn't going as planned to be kept in the information loop about it.

Sure I get yelled at if I'm late picking up a load, can I yell at them for dispatching me late for a load? My magic 8-ball says "Not likely".