TowingBossPro Blog — Towing Software

Running the Dispatch Board by Truck and Day

The dispatch whiteboard has been the center of towing companies for a long time, and for good reason: it shows everyone, at a glance, which truck is doing what. The problem is that it only shows what somebody remembered to write on it, it can't be seen from a truck, and it gets erased.

In Assigning Calls to a Driver and Truck in One Step, we covered assigning calls to a driver and truck. Here is what the board looks like once those assignments exist.

Organized the Way You Already Think

Dispatchers think in trucks. "The rollback has two more, the wrecker is on that recovery, the service truck is free." The TowingBossPro dispatch board — the Scheduled list — is organized the same way: by truck and by day. Each truck has its calls listed in route order, so the board reads like the whiteboard you already know, except it stays current.

Because it is organized by day too, it handles more than today. Scheduled transports, a dealer move booked for Thursday or an impound release appointment can sit on the right day under the right truck until it is time.

Route Order on Every Truck

A list of calls is not a plan until it has an order. On the board, each truck's calls carry a route order. Dispatch can set it by hand when there is a reason — a customer waiting on the shoulder goes before a car sitting in a driveway — or use auto-routing to put the stops in a sensible sequence.

The driver sees that same order in the driver app. When dispatch changes it, the driver's list changes too, which removes the classic mistake of a driver working from an old version of the plan.

Same-Day Calls and Scheduled Work Together

Towing is mostly reactive, but not entirely. Many companies also do scheduled work: dealer transports, moving vehicles between lots, repair shop runs, equipment moves. Those jobs often get squeezed between emergency calls and forgotten on busy days.

When scheduled jobs and same-day calls sit on the same board, dispatch can see the conflict coming. If the flatbed has a scheduled transport at two, dispatch knows not to stack three long tows in front of it. If something has to slip, it slips on purpose and the customer can be told.

Moving Calls When Things Go Sideways

A truck breaks down. A driver gets stuck at a recovery that takes twice as long as expected. A police call comes in that needs a specific truck. The board is where you fix the day. Move calls from one truck to another and both drivers see the change in their apps.

The board also shows status. When a driver taps start and complete, the office sees it without calling. On a busy afternoon, that means dispatch knows which trucks are about to clear and can line up their next calls before the drivers ask.

Weekend and After-Hours Dispatch

Many towing companies dispatch from a phone after hours, often by an owner or an on-call driver. A whiteboard in a closed office is useless at that point. Because the board lives in the software, whoever is on call sees the same picture as the weekday dispatcher. Calls that came in overnight are on the board in the morning, already tied to the truck that worked them.

That continuity is underrated. Monday morning stops being an archaeology project of reading Saturday's texts to figure out what happened.

It also takes pressure off the person on call. An owner answering the phone at midnight can add the call, assign it to the on-call driver and truck, and go back to bed knowing the driver has the pickup, the drop-off, the vehicle and the notes in his app. Nothing depends on remembering to write it down in the morning, and nothing gets invoiced late because the details were in somebody's head.

What a Good Board Gives the Owner

For an owner, the board answers the questions that matter during the day: are all trucks working, is anything stuck, is any truck overloaded while another sits? After the day, the board's history shows what each truck did. Combined with reports and call categories, it tells you whether you need another truck, another driver or just better dispatch.

A good board doesn't replace a good dispatcher. It gives a good dispatcher room to think instead of spending the shift remembering. For how the board connects to calls, drivers and invoicing, see the towing software guide.