TowingBossPro Blog — Driver App & Routes

Running Multiple Drivers and Trucks From One Driver App

One driver and one truck is easy. The owner answers the phone, writes the address on a pad, and drives. Add a second truck and somebody has to keep track of who is going where. By the time you have five trucks, two flatbeds, a wheel lift, a heavy wrecker and a service truck, the old way of keeping it in your head falls apart.

After the time clock in Time Clock in the Tow Driver App: Clean Hours Without the Paper Sheet, this article looks at what changes when the driver app runs across a whole fleet.

Driver and Truck Are Assigned Together

In TowingBossPro, the dispatcher assigns calls to a driver and a truck in one step. Circle a group of calls on the Waiting List map, or select them, and hand them to a driver and truck. The calls land on that truck's Scheduled list for that day.

Assigning both together matters in towing because the truck decides what calls make sense. A driver on a wheel lift should not get the all-wheel-drive SUV that needs a flatbed. A heavy wrecker should not be burned on a jump start across town.

Getting this right on the assign step saves the call that comes twenty minutes later: the driver pulls up, sees the vehicle, and radios that they cannot take it. Now the customer waits twice.

Each Driver Sees Only Their List

Every driver opens the app and sees their own calls in order. They do not scroll past other drivers' work to find theirs. That keeps the screen clean and makes it obvious when something new shows up.

It also cuts down on drivers grabbing each other's calls. When two drivers hear the same call on the radio, sometimes both head for it. When the call is on one driver's list, it is that driver's call.

The office sees all of it: the Scheduled list by truck and day, with each truck's calls in route order.

When Drivers Swap Trucks

Drivers do not always run the same truck. A flatbed is in the shop, a driver who usually runs light duty steps up to the heavy, or two drivers trade for a day. Because calls are assigned to a driver and a truck, the dispatcher makes the change once and the right driver sees the right calls.

Keep the truck list current in the system. If a truck is out of service, it should not be sitting on the board waiting for calls.

Balancing the Board

With several trucks, the dispatcher's main job is balance. One truck with eleven calls and another with three means somebody is going to run late. The Scheduled list makes the imbalance obvious, and moving a call from one truck to another is a few clicks.

Auto-routing helps inside each truck's list by putting the calls in a sensible order. The dispatcher still decides which calls go to which truck, using knowledge the software does not have: which driver is best at recoveries, who knows the dealer row at the auction lot, who needs to be done by 4.

Call categories make it faster. Light-Duty Tows, Heavy-Duty Tows, Roadside, Accident and Recovery, Impound and Storage, and Transports each point toward a type of truck. A dispatcher scanning the Waiting List can sort roadside calls to the service truck and transports to the flatbeds without opening every call.

Never Billed per User

A lot of software gets expensive fast as you add drivers, because each one is another seat. TowingBossPro is never billed per user. Plans are Start $59/mo, Pro $89/mo and Crew $199/mo, and every driver, part-timer and on-call fill-in can have the app.

That changes how you roll it out. You are not deciding which drivers are worth a license. Everybody gets it, which is the only way the board stays accurate.

Rolling It Out Across the Fleet

Start with one or two trucks, fix the problems they find, then add the rest. Make sure every truck is in the system and every driver has a login before the first full day. Expect a few days of reminders about start and complete taps, then it settles.

See how the fleet setup connects to the rest of the driver app on the Tow Truck Driver App page.