Dispatch

Owner operator dispatch software earns its keep the moment you add a second truck. Running one truck, you can dispatch yourself from a phone and a notebook. Running two or three, with different drivers on different pay plans, you need a system that tracks loads, pay, and paperwork without you re-typing the same numbers three times. This is written for the owner operator who’s past the “should I get software” question and into the “which features actually matter at this size” question. You’re running 1-3 trucks now, thinking about 5-10, and you don’t want to buy a system built for a 200-truck fleet or a spreadsheet that falls apart at truck 4. ...

To calculate cost per mile (CPM) for a trucking company, add up every cost of running the truck over a period (fixed costs plus variable costs, driver pay included) and divide by the total miles driven in that same period, loaded and empty. Then divide the same total cost by loaded miles only. That second number is the one that tells you whether a load pays, because deadhead miles cost money and earn nothing. ...

A TMS with Samsara integration pulls truck locations from your Samsara devices into the dispatch system, so dispatchers see where every truck is on the same screen where they plan and assign loads, without logging into a second dashboard or calling the driver. At minimum, the integration should put live GPS positions on the dispatch map and keep them current. Better integrations use that location data for ETAs, customer tracking updates and stop-arrival evidence. Before you buy, confirm exactly which of those your TMS actually does with Samsara data, because “integrates with Samsara” can mean anything from a live map to a one-time vehicle import. ...

Every dispatcher has made this call: “Hey, just checking in, where you at?” The driver is doing 68 on I-40, hands-free isn’t always legal to answer mid-lane-change, and the answer you get is “somewhere past Amarillo, I think.” You write down a guess, hang up, and move to the next load on your board. Multiply that by every load, every four hours, every day, and you’ve built an entire job function around asking a question the truck already knows the answer to. ...

Ask a dispatcher how their day went and you’ll usually get a laugh before an answer. Most days don’t go according to any plan they made at 6 a.m. A driver’s running late to a pickup, a broker wants a check call they already gave twenty minutes ago, and somebody’s still waiting on a rate confirmation that was supposed to go out before lunch. By the time you add it all up, dispatching isn’t one job. It’s five jobs wearing one name badge. ...

Every dispatcher who has run a board for more than a few months has a number in their head for deadhead. Often it’s an estimate made once and never checked against actual settlement data, while the real number sits in your own RateCons and driver settlements the whole time. The short answer: to reduce deadhead, measure empty miles per truck and per lane (not fleet-wide), then change how loads are accepted — check outbound freight at the delivery market, consolidate stops, price the empty return into the rate, dispatch from live truck position, and compare loads by margin after deadhead instead of gross rate per mile. ...

Most small carriers and brokerages start the same way: a spreadsheet someone built on a slow Tuesday, and it never stopped growing. Now it’s got fifteen tabs, three macros nobody remembers writing, and a driver pay formula that only works if you don’t sort column G. It’s not that spreadsheets are bad. It’s that they were never built to run dispatch for a fleet with more than a handful of trucks, and at some point the workaround cost more than the fix. ...

Picture a dispatcher at a 20-truck carrier who wants to know where a load is right now, and the honest answer is “let me call the driver and find out.” That’s not a technology problem in theory. In practice, it’s the reason detention disputes drag on, the reason a customer’s tracking portal request turns into an awkward phone tag session, and the reason a driver gets a check call at 6 a.m. asking something the dispatcher should already know. ...