So I took a broker load today and tryed this .

You sir have a point. Especially in your case. I imagine it would probably freak the customer out pretty badly seeing you go about your business lol. I'm sure whatever app eventually wins this contest will have solved this somehow. Actually seems really easy to put a bluetooth device in the truck that sets the tracking 'off' when the phone goes more than 50 feet from the truck or something and just reports last position. This is going to be a commercial grade solution that works like an ak-47 in 10 years.

 

You run the same way I do and I've had this argument with one shipper a few years ago on the Friday of the Dallas truck show. I asked them what good would it do to track me if I'm 200 miles away from the truck headed in the opposite direction of where the load was going...they just gave me a dumb look and said no tracking no load...so I bounced my happy untracked self 200 miles back to the house and started my weekend a few hours early.
Nothing was said prior to me arriving at the shipper about the tracking

 

The problem, and this annoys me too, is that the app sometimes doesn't eliminate those unnecessary check calls. It should but it doesn't always.

 

No, it does not. Tracking allows the broker to see where the freight is at the moment, NOT when the freight will arrive. Tracking the phone does NOT indicate traffic or weather conditions, the driver's HOS, fuel level in the tanks, or any other information that will affect the time needed to reach the destination. Want to give the customer an ETA? Better talk to me first, because while your assumption based upon my location MIGHT be accurate, it probably isn't. Tracking is NOT a good substitute for actually talking to the driver.

In regards to the other thread (which I haven't read) where you claim drivers don't want to be called, that is true too. Several calls per day is completely unnecessary. Once per day ought to be sufficient. More than that borders on harrassment. Yes, it's your customer's freight on the truck, and I told you this morning that I was on schedule for the appointment time I was given or for the ETA I had previously provided. The situation hasn't changed since the last time you called, though, and it won't likely change again in the next 30 minutes when you'll be dialing my number again for another unnecessary update. Bottom line, don't call me I'll call you. In the mean time, just let me do my job. The law frowns upon cell phone use while driving, and quite frankly it is a royal PITA for me to talk to ANYONE while my truck is in motion (especially in the summer when my windows are open), so the more I have to stop to take your call, the longer it takes to move your freight. If there is a problem, I'll let you know. Otherwise, expect the truck to arrive when I told you it would arrive and leave me alone.

 

Actually whoever makes this app is going to have really high quality traffic data from all these tracked trucks. Maybe the best real time traffic data in the country. That data will get sold to Google and get integrated into Google Maps. It's going to be a not-meaningless income stream for the company.

 

So why shouldn't the source of that data (the driver who's phone is being tracked) be able to get a piece of that income stream? TINSTAAFL. If you want the data, pay for the data.

 

Nah. The app's going to be free to the truck. People will install it because everyone will have it installed. When the load starts the trucking company will give a code or something to whoever the load is with and they will use it to track the truck for the duration of the load.

Or something like that. 'But we get your data...' is the deal we've all taken dozens of times for useful free software. It'll be the same here too.

 

Man, one little joke and it gets all serious. It still kind of sucks that the reason for temperature recorders is because a lot of money is on the line, and not that a bunch of people could get seriously ill from it.

 

There's a lot of money on the line because a lot of people could get seriously ill from it sometimes. Time is the enemy of refrigerated transportation. When I hear about stuff like flatbed carriers just NOT SHOWING UP for lumber/steel/building materials loads and not bothering to tell anyone it just about blows my mind. But steel, lumber, and building materials aren't on a 21 day clock the day they are created to be used or discarded.