B
efore we started using McLeod’s Detention module, our approach to managing detention was highly manual. A member of
our staff spent hours looking at GPS data and collecting messages from drivers. Despite all of the labor invested, the lack of automation meant that there were too many instances when we didn’t have all of the data needed to document detention. Here are the main challenges that we faced:
• We didn’t have a dependable
method of documenting a driver’s arrival time.
We tried to get drivers to have bills of lading signed when arriving, but this wasn’t always possible. In some cases, drivers would be waiting for over an hour before being able to get the BOL signed, so that was not an acceptable means of documenting arrival time.
• We lost revenue due to
• Detention caused frustration for our drivers.
Driver retention is a big issue today and we want to be known as a company that looks out for its drivers. Being able to track their detention and ensuring that they’re going to get the most money for their time is extremely important to us. Drivers were particularly frustrated when detention problems would wreck their plans for time off after completing a load. Being able to track, monitor, and predict potential delays allows dispatch to route drivers away from these bottlenecks.
• Scheduling was more
rMi’s
inefficiencies. We relied on the drivers to notify us when they arrived, but sometimes they forgot. If the driver forgot, the process required more manual labor in the office and we couldn’t always determine an accurate arrival time. In these events, detention wasn’t getting documented. We’re seeing more and more contract agreements that ask for real-time information from our customers and brokers. If we can’t get this to them in a timely fashion, our contract agreements may state that we forfeit detention.
Detention Challenges
difficult. We had to be more tentative about scheduling, not knowing when trucks would be free. Sometimes we had service failures with subsequent loads that had been scheduled. Hours of service headaches increased, because drivers lost valuable time while detained.
• We couldn’t see the entire picture. We didn’t have the data we needed to evaluate the
impact of detention on our business. People could make guesses about which customers were causing the most detention and how much, but it was guesswork, because we didn’t have the data at our fingertips.
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