Dispatchers have one of the most important jobs in transportation. They are the central hub for planning and communicating across multiple stakeholders—from drivers and brokers, to shippers and receivers.

But the job requires a demanding level of manual coordination. A typical day can include dozens of phone calls to find the right drivers; switching between several websites for crucial information like traffic; and fielding inbound requests from anxious customers.

That’s why we recently launched our next-gen integrated GPS tracking technology to help revolutionize the way dispatchers work. Now, Fleet View gives dispatchers command-center visibility into daily fleet operations to achieve the ultimate measure of efficiency: to dispatch as fast as possible, and keep freight moving smoothly.

How to use Motive to increase dispatch efficiency

Let’s explore a typical day in the life of a dispatcher, and why new tools from Motive’s Fleet View empower dispatchers to work smarter, not harder, across the drivers, vehicles, trailers, and equipment they operate.

Imagine a dispatcher gets a call about a hot delivery that needs to get picked up immediately. To dispatch the job, first they have to see which available driver is closest to the pick-up location. Next, the dispatcher has to estimate the driver’s time of arrival to ensure the load can be picked up on time—and ensure it aligns with a driver’s remaining Hours of Service (HOS).

Before Motive’s Fleet View, this would all take a combination of several different applications: including a routing service, phone calls or text messages to check location, and then reviewing driver logs in a different system to see if the driver has enough remaining hours to complete the job. But now, with Motive’s Proximity Search tool, a dispatcher can simply click on the pickup location on the map and see a full list of nearby vehicles, drivers, and assets—all sorted by the nearest to the pickup location, with information on the estimated travel time and distance. The dispatcher will also see available driver HOS information on the same live map to confirm the driver can stay legally compliant during the trip.

2. Plan smarter with weather & traffic map layers

Next, the dispatcher looks to ensure that the driver can deliver the load safely and on time, without encountering traffic or hazardous weather conditions. Typically, this would require a dispatcher popping out of their dispatching system and over to various traffic or weather websites.

But now with Motive, this information is available on the exact same integrated map that you just searched for nearby drivers with our weather and traffic map layers. Dispatchers can plan smarter by turning on different layers to get the full picture of traffic, weather, and more—so they can reroute drivers or prep for delays if necessary. 

3. Give customers real-time visibility with live location sharing

Ideally, once the nearest driver is safely dispatched, the dispatcher would be able to keep their customer up to date on where their items are located. However, since dispatchers typically get pulled into teeing up the next job—they’re often left with a long list of missed calls and emails from anxious customers.

Motive’s breakthrough Live Location Sharing tool allows dispatchers to communicate live location, accurate ETAs, and real-time alerts to give their customers actionable real-time visibility. Keep customers and partners up to date throughout the entire duration of a trip, right after you dispatch the driver, to create an exceptional customer experience.

Ready to dispatch faster? 

We are. Now you can use technology to streamline your entire dispatch process and eliminate manual inefficiencies from your daily operations so you can focus on the more critical tasks that matter most to your business.

One more thing. In addition to the breakthrough features listed above, Motive’s best-in-class GPS tracking technology has a number of other tools to help you dispatch faster—including TMS integrations, live follow mode, interactive location history, and a companion app for on-the-go tracking. We will cover these tools in-depth as a followup to this blog post.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can use Motive to run more efficient daily fleet operations, please request a demo.