Bringing the trucking industry online was our goal a decade ago when we started out as KeepTruckin. When we launched our free electronic logbook app, we quickly saw more than 2 million driver downloads—thanks to the drivers who used it and recommended it to others. Today, the Motive Driver App is still recognized as a top-rated trucking app, meeting your hours-of-service (HOS) recording needs and regularly evolving to meet driver and industry demands. 

New name, same HOS tracking technology

Motive founders set out to build technology that would improve safety and efficiency for the businesses that keep our economy moving. Over the years, we realized that digitization could help all kinds of businesses—oil and gas, food and beverage, agriculture, construction, and more—to more efficiently grow and meet increasing demand. In 2022, we rebranded as Motive to reflect the fact that our solutions are being used throughout the physical economy to improve productivity, profitability, and safety.

With an integrated digital platform to manage physical operations, the more than 120,000 businesses we now serve can connect vehicles, equipment, and facilities to the cloud with AI-powered applications automating tracking and telematics, driver safety, compliance, maintenance, spend management, and much more. 

In this article, we’ll discuss Motive’s forward-looking advancements in areas like safety, telematics, fuel efficiency, and routing.

Overview of the Motive Driver App

From the outset, the Motive Driver App has made recording HOS faster and easier. In one independent study, Motive’s intuitive interface and clean design increased productivity by up to 50%. Drivers and fleet managers could complete IFTA reporting and DVIRs 20% to 50% faster than with other fleet management solutions.

Over the past decade, the Motive Driver App has evolved to become an all-in-one fleet management solution, increasing efficiency and streamlining processes to benefit everything from compliance and safety to maintenance and dispatch.

Benefits and features of this trucking app

Any change to the Motive Driver App comes at the direction of drivers and fleets. We visit truck stops, attend trade shows, and go onsite to learn new ways to make your lives easier. That legwork has led to the many benefits discussed in this section.

Manage time and workload

Trucking apps only succeed if they can simplify the work for drivers and fleet managers. The Motive Driver App offers drivers an intuitive hours-of-service clock that shows exactly how much time is left in the shift and cycle. The app helps drivers plan their trips accordingly with clocks calculating the time remaining before: 

  • A 30-minute break is needed.
  • The driving limit is reached.
  • A shift ends.
  • The 60- or 70-hour cycle ends.

Improve communication

The best trucking apps also improve communication between the back office and drivers out on the road. Since the electronic logging information is available online to fleet managers, and in near real-time, the back office can keep up with ELD compliance as well. That cuts the need for check-in calls and saves those doing the compliance reporting from having to wait for drivers to submit logs. 

For added convenience, the Driver Communication app within the Motive Driver App powers real-time messages between drivers and dispatchers.

Ensure compliance

The Motive Driver App is a useful truck driver app for compliance. Take West Coast Distributing (WCD), an East Coast meat and produce hauler. With 57 refrigerated vans, WCD was trying hard to protect its CSA score, but relying on manual logs was leaving them open to HOS violations. After months of using the affordable Motive Driver App for simple electronic logging, the company’s safety record was spotless. WCD’s safety and compliance manager, Keith Buchanan, even wrote customers to tell them about the revamped compliance efforts and saw positive results. He said, “Anytime you can improve safety while keeping an eye on your bottom line, your customers notice.”

How do trucking apps affect fleet operations?

The best trucking apps prioritize drivers’ needs, help simplify tasks, and increase productivity. With driver recruitment and retention so critical to a fleet’s success, an effective Driver App can make a real difference in how drivers feel about working with your fleet. We’ll talk a bit more about how trucking apps affect fleet operations in the next section.

Streamline fleet operations

The Motive Driver App consolidates important processes and paperwork in one, easy-to-access place. Drivers on the road and managers in the back office or working remotely can see the same information in near real-time. When the driver is dispatched, their GPS location data is shared with the Motive Fleet Dashboard to update dispatchers and fleet managers on stops and arrivals. It’s also possible to confirm and receive dispatches, view load details, and review past dispatches all in the app.

Integrating the app with a fleet management platform, you can unify fleet operations. Fleet drivers can keep track of everything within the mobile app, and your back office avoids having to switch between platforms to get the data insights they need. Plus, you no longer have to worry about poor penmanship as the data entry is done electronically. The Motive Driver App also automatically prompts drivers to update any unsigned logs and unidentified driving events to keep your documentation current.

Manage fleet vehicles and drivers more effectively

The Driver App puts a wealth of data at your finger tips. You enjoy ready access to details about each driver’s trip, total hours worked, distance traveled, hours of service, and vehicle inspection reports. All this can support more data-informed dispatch and help your fleet improve federal and state compliance. 

You’ll be better positioned to take a proactive approach to risk management as well. With Motive, you can set up alerts to prevent unidentified vehicle motion. The Driver App can send an email when any vehicle moves without being connected to its Vehicle Gateway to prevent violations before they happen.

Connect the Driver App with the Motive Smart Dashcam and you also add an extra layer of safety. The Motive Driver Scorecards provided help fleet managers identify unsafe drivers and make driver coaching programs more effective.

Save time and money

Trucking apps can bring real benefits to your business. You’ll save valuable time and money by taking advantage of the many features offered to expedite processes according to industry best practices. For instance, you might: 

  • Automate tasks like IFTA reporting. 
  • Help drivers manage paperwork by providing custom templates. 
  • Track spending in the app with Motive fleet cards,
  • Identify and fill gaps in drivers’ logs via notifications and AI. 

Avoiding compliance issues can save you potential time and money lost while also helping to improve your CSA scores. Typically, the better your scores, the better your business opportunities. 

Of all the options available, what is the best trucker app?

There are many trucking apps available today (unlike when the KeepTruckin app started). In deciding on the best trucker app for your needs, you’ll typically want to use factors that independent industry analysts rely on such as: cost, user-friendliness, ease of use, and advanced features.

The Motive Driver App is free. Plus, you’ll consistently find Motive at the top among the most cost-effective ELD solutions in the market. Our ease of use is also something drivers and fleets are enthusiastic about in their reviews. “Amazingly simple. Incredibly Effective,” says one reviewer in the App Store, where the Driver App has a 4.4 out of 5 overall from nearly 10,000 reviews.

Excellent customer support sets the Motive Driver App apart as well. Regrettably, there are some ELD providers that aren’t taking customer support seriously enough. At Motive, our support reps are available round the clock, 365 days a year over phone, email, and chat to answer any questions and help resolve problems drivers face on the road. 

In fact, customer support is one of the reasons CSX Intermodal appreciates its Motive solution. “With Motive, I get through to a person right away. Our drivers have also been impressed with the support. If they have a question, they get an answer within five minutes,” says Matt Myers, Fleet Supervisor at CSX. “Motive has great customer service, is very user-friendly, and is easy to pick up and run with.”

Motive also offers an extensive marketplace of app integrations to help our customers make the most of their solution. 

Experience the Motive Driver App

Find out for yourself why the Motive Driver app is one of the most popular electronic logbook apps on Google Play Store and App Store. You can download the app for free today, even if your trucking company uses another ELD solution. Compliant with the FMCSA regulations, including Part 395, as well as Canadian Federal HOS regulations, the Driver App works on both Apple and Android phones or tablets.

If you’re looking for a complete management solution, find out more about Motive’s feature-rich fleet management software and how it can improve your fleet’s efficiency and positively impact your business’ bottom line. Connect with a Motive rep today.