Some dispatchers like to plan their trip before they start booking all the orders. You can do that in the Trip Builder. Others cut to the chase and only care about a load once they secure it.
This article will show you how to:
Add loads to a Trip and see how each one adds up to the total distance and revenue
Try different configurations of stops and loads to maximize your revenue
Fill up your empty spots to minimize the loss of potential revenue per mile
Keep track of your trips' progress and overall performance.
Adding loads to a trip
There are no limitations on what type of loads you could add to a trip. They could be:
Orders you've already booked
via Ship.Cars, or
imported from any other board. Learn how to import loads here.
Or postings you would first see how they fit:
from the Ship.Cars Loadboard, or
a "Load Candidate" from any other load board.
Learn more about Load Candidates and how to add them here.
Unsorted list and how to use it
ℹ️ Unsorted holds all loads not yet added to your Trip Plan.
Only the stops of your first load get added to the Trip Plan automatically. All further stops are added as Unsorted until they are moved. To do so, just press the ➕ button next to the stop you want to add to your Trip Plan.
To remove a load from your trip, hover on one of its stops and click on the bin button to remove both of them.
💬 Tip: By utilizing the Unsorted list, you can easily set aside loads and experiment with different load combinations to optimize your trip.
Optimizing your Trip Plan
All sorted trip stops make up the Trip Plan. To make changes, simply drag a stop and drop it where you see fit. The trip chart will recalculate the distances between each stop, and it will show you how your truck's capacity is getting utilized along the way.
💬 Tip: Just set the first and last stops in your trip, and click the "Optimize Route" button. The system will automatically arrange the stops in between.
Filling up empty spots in a trip
Once a Trip Plan is generated, you may find out certain rows show empty spots. The Trip Plan's chart each row is a spot on your truck, and the length of an empty spot represents the distance your truck will travel underutilized.
💬 Tip: Let Ship.Cars look for loads for your empty spots automatically by turning on the "Opportunity Emails" option on the right side of the map.
Tracking the progress of your trip
Each pickup and delivery stop shows the load's status in the Trip Builder, so a dispatcher could track the progress from the Trip Details screen.
Postings could have the following states:
Posted on Ship.Cars - still available for you to send an offer;
Offer sent - for when you have an active offer sent to the shipper;
Reply to offer - for when there is an offer waiting for your reply;
Unavailable - for when a posting has been removed from the load board.
Once loads move in your Carrier Dashboard, they get through the following states:
Booked - New and Accepted loads you have in your "All Orders" section;
Then the well-known: Assigned, Picked Up, Delivered, and Archived.
Load Candidate is a state for loads you add to simply test their compatibility with the rest of the loads in a trip.
💬 Tip: Consider promoting Load Candidates to "Booked" loads or removing them from your Virtual Trip Builder on time, so it could always show live data accurately.