First in a 3-part series: Will the Dispatcher of the Future Be a Robot?
By Advance Business Capital

Goodbye Louie de Palma?
Everybody loved to hate Louie De Palma, the short sadistic dispatcher played by Danny DeVito in TV’s Taxi. Louie, feud-lord of a very small fiefdom, ruled and berated all cabbies hapless enough to fall under within his radio frequency. Taxi’s drivers scorned Louie but endured him as the necessary evil of the fare way. Taxi viewers, real-life drivers and dispatchers alike, chortled at the bickering battles between the eternal antagonists of Dispatcher and Dispatched.

How should we feel then to learn that the days of the world’s Louie De Palma’s may be numbered? Many companies already use software to perform part of the dispatcher’s function and two of the largest carriers are actively researching what other jobs can be done by computer. It seems the era of the virtual dispatcher is inevitably approaching.

Software: Optimizing Loads
Load optimization software is now a standard element in load planning for all large and medium carriers. “Looking at a million different possibilities is impossible for a dispatcher,” Dave Faulkenberry, managing director for HomeDirectUSA, a subsidiary of Bekins Van Lines, told Transport Topics in an article on the subject. “The beauty [of the software] is it gives you choices you can't configure by yourself, providing a range of delivery options that best meet the needs of the customer and the fleet that you otherwise wouldn't have — and much faster as well.”

Load planning, however, is only part of dispatching, and frankly the part most easily automated. Here’s a major carrier’s description of a dispatcher’s duties:

“Truck dispatchers are available at all times to establish a good working relationship with each driver and earn their trust and respect; answer any of their questions, negotiate home time and arrange emergency time off; act as a liaison between driver and all internal departments; and understand and enforce company policies.”

Humanware: Optimizing Drivers
The subtext here is that dispatchers not only schedule loads but act as both enforcer and ombudsman for drivers. This is a vital role. Unhappy drivers quit their jobs; driver turnover is costly. The point person for driver retention is the dispatcher. A recent Princeton University study of driver turnover found that the two most important issues were “maintaining a target length of haul” and “getting the driver home on time.” In other words, if drivers are told they’ll be on the road for three days, don’t assign a load that will take four.

Optimization software is undoubtedly better at configuring a load and estimating delivery time, which fulfills the Princeton study’s top two issues, but how about establishing “a good working relationship with each driver and earn[ing] their trust and respect?” When, as will inevitably happen, a driver works more hours (or days) than planned, the dispatcher is the company’s ears and voice to assuage the unhappy employee. Anyone who’s ever ranted at a telephone tree knows that even the most sophisticated interface programs are lousy at responding to individual needs and human emotions.

Even so, companies are plowing ahead with ambitious programs to automate as much of dispatching as possible. We’ll see what progress they’ve made in our next installment.

This story was drawn from articles in FleetOwner and Transport Topics.

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