How To Track Freight

Your brokerage has booked a load with a carrier! Hopefully your company has made an acceptable margin on the load, but what happens after they are booked? It is up to the track and trace team to make sure that the load goes smoothly!

It is now up to you and your team to keep in contact with the carrier. That means that in order to get updates, you must be in contact with either the driver or the dispatcher for the driver. Sometimes the driver has been booked but they are still delivering another load. That is perfectly fine as long as they have enough time to make it to the pickup facility.

For your first call, you should be asking a few questions. First, you want to know if the truck is empty or if it is still loaded with the previous load’s freight. Either way, you will need to get a current location for the driver and when he/she will make it to the pickup facility. Appointment times are usually standard for loads. There are some instances where they will have a window of time that they need to arrive between. Once they are on site at the pickup, they will require a pickup number that the customer has provided the brokerage with. Problems sometimes occur when the numbers do not match up with the load they are supposed to get, so internal communication between the trackers and the account managers is key. Time is of the essence since the drivers will need ample time to get to the delivery. Once they have the pickup number and are loaded, it is essential to get the times that they arrived and left the facility. These times will corroborate with the times that will be on their paperwork from the facility.

The next step in the tracking process is to make sure that they are loaded and rolling, which means they are driving to the delivery point. Again, it is essential to get their location and the estimated time of arrival to make sure there will not be any problems with getting the load to the delivery on time. After all, that is why your customer is paying you to broker the load!

Depending on the time of the delivery and the distance they still need to drive, you will have to decide when it is appropriate to call to get an update on that load. For the more important loads, the calls to the driver or their dispatcher will be more frequent. You will want to know about any problems as soon as possible so you have more time to figure out a solution.

While a truck is in transit, there are things that can go wrong. The most common problem that comes up is that the driver is stuck in traffic, especially when they are trying to go through a city during rush hour. This adds a lot of time to their drive, and it is essential that you stay on top of when they will arrive to the delivery. Another problem that can occur is problems with the truck. A tire can go flat, parts of the truck can break, or the refrigeration unit on the truck can malfunction. For these types of breakdowns, you would ask for proof of the breakdown since some drivers use breaking down as an excuse for running behind schedule. This can be provided by a picture sent by the driver or a receipt from a repair shop if the breakdown is bad.

If the driver is going to be late to the delivery, you need to ask for the reason. This is important because you have to know if it was something they could have avoided, or if was due to circumstances that was out of their control.

A problem that happens more often than it should is that the drivers run out of hours that they are allowed to operate, and this is going to make them late. This kind of problem occurs more during periods of time when the Department of Transportation (DoT) is out enforcing strict hours of operation compliance. Drivers are only allowed to drive for ten hours at a time, and then they need to rest. This is in place for the safety of themselves and other drivers on the road. For the load to be booked, the dispatcher assures the broker that the driver will have enough hours of operation and time for breaks to make it to the delivery on time. They sometimes lie about having enough hours to operate so they can book the load. This causes a lot of problems for the brokerage.

More often than not, if a driver is going to be late and they notify the brokerage in time, they are able to reschedule the appointment time to fit the estimated time of arrival. If it is not rescheduled, most receivers will work the driver in to get them unloaded when there is free time between scheduled appointments.

The next call you make after the transit calls are to make sure the driver got checked in to the receiver and that they have a dock to be unloaded at. The brokerage documents the time that they arrived and will be in contact again after the truck has been unloaded.

The final call you will make is to either the driver or the dispatcher to make sure they got unloaded fine. Sometimes there are problems. Products can be damaged during transit, the seal on the truck could be broken before they arrive, or the receiver will charge the driver to get his truck unloaded. These problems need to be documented and relayed to the customer.

When the driver’s truck is unloaded, they will get a paper called the bill of lading signed by the receiver. This is proof that the delivery was successful, and the carrier company will send the proof of delivery with an invoice to the brokerage. The paperwork is then sent to the accounting department, and the tracker’s job for that load is done!

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