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

The examples of dispatchers in our two previous columns were drawn from the movies and TV, Humphrey Bogart in They Drive By Night and Danny DeVito in Taxi, “good” and “bad” dispatchers respectively. This time our example is a real-life dispatcher who identifies himself as “Mikey Small,” and posts his observations of life in the desk lane on YouTube. His comments here are edited for brevity.

            When I was a dispatcher, I treated my drivers like ****. I admit that. When they would tell me about road conditions or what was going on, I told them I didn’t care. It was only when I became a driver that I realized what a lonely job driving is. The dispatcher is those drivers’ only connection to civilization, because they’re on the road so much. I didn’t give them the respect they deserved.

What Does a Dispatcher Do?
At least two major carriers are researching the potential of “virtual dispatchers,” software that replaces the role of the dispatcher. Many old-timers may hoot at the notion, but load-matching software is now widely adopted and has proven to be a major help in optimizing routes and schedules.

What other dispatch tasks can smart software perform? Tom McLeod, founder of McLeod Software, one of the premier off-the-shelf dispatcher programs, lists four “needs” for a successful virtual dispatcher. 

• Global Positioning Tracking System. Load-matching software depends on knowing which drivers and vehicles are closest to a pick-up. Currently, only a few custom-designed programs have this ability, but it’s only a matter of time before this capability will be standard in even off-the-shelf software. 
• Two-way machine-to-machine communication. When a load arrives at the dock, the dispatcher is the carrier’s contact with the shipper. At present shippers and carriers communicate through fax, phone or email, efficient but still human-driven. The goal is to someday allow freight information to be exchanged via electronic data interchange, dispensing entirely with the dispatcher’s role. This is still a long way off. 
• Monitoring active and idle trucks and drivers. Once deliveries are made, the company is losing money until drivers are assigned their next loads. Currently, most of this is still done by dispatchers scribbling names and locations on whiteboards or legal pads.  
• In-cab communications. The ideal dispatch software should be able to inform drivers of changes and answer their questions. Technically, the communication abilities are already in place but two huge obstacles remain. The first is the sheer number of variables in driver-dispatch communications. Even if this can be someday overcome, the other is the question of how drivers will respond to instructions from a machine rather than a person.

David Mook, CEO of TMW Systems, which also sells load-matching software, adds a final item to the list. 

• Electronic onboard recorder. This would inform the virtual dispatcher how many work hours the driver has left in his day. It’s pointless to tell a driver with only two hours left to pick up a load four hours away.  

The Biggest Challenge
These are daunting tasks, but two years ago major carrier Schneider National and the University of Princeton created a virtual dispatcher “as smart as [an] experienced team of dispatchers and fleet managers.” Technically, Schneider could use this to replace the hundreds of dispatchers it currently employs to manage its thousands of trucks.

But Schneider has held back and used the program mostly for modeling the demands of major routing and scheduling changes, such as would be required by the acquisition of a large customer. If the technology is ever implemented for regular use, it will probably only be gradually and likely never entirely replace the human interface between mike and cab.

Louie, Your Job Is Secure
The truth is drivers are people and they prefer to communicate with other people, even ones with lousy personalities like Taxi’s Louie De Palma. A fully automated dispatch system, the “virtual dispatcher” of the future, will undoubtedly be more efficient than humans, but the human factor is hard to replicate in algorithms. Until drivers can themselves be replaced by robots, it’s unlikely robots will ever fully replace dispatchers.

This story was drawn from articles in FleetOwner, Transport Topics and What Makes a Good Dispatcher?, a video by Mikey Small.

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