If you’ve ever driven a truck, you know the feeling: you’re hanging around waiting on one of those call-me-back-in-five-minutes deals and fancying yourself in the dispatcher’s chair moving that poor driver right back out on the road again.

On the other hand, if you’ve ever spent time at the dispatch desk, you know there’s more to the job than just throwing darts at the map and issuing the driver new marching orders.

The dispatcher keeps the freight on the go. He does that by assigning trucks and drivers to the job, but in doing so faces a complex set of demands. The move has to be done at minimal cost, it has to be done according to a schedule, there must be trucks and drivers available to complete the trip, and the equipment on the road has to meet the customer’s needs.

It’s like a puzzle. There’s a truck in Winnipeg; there’s a load in Winnipeg, too, except it’s bound for Calgary and the driver wants to head home to Halifax. There’ll be a Calgary-based driver in Winnipeg tomorrow, but she’s not scheduled to unload until late in the afternoon. But it turns out that the Calgary driver will be arriving in Winnipeg a day early. The Halifax driver can make the pickup in Winnipeg and doesn’t mind switching and waiting a day to unload the inbound freight, since he’s nearly out of hours anyway. And there’s a load in Fort Francis, Ont., bound for Montreal, with another load scheduled to leave there for Halifax the following morning.

Click. Click. Click. The dispatcher fits all these isolated pieces together, making something constructive and profitable happen.

Like good drivers, you don’t just stumble upon good dispatchers. A lot of fleet managers figure drivers are potential recruits, specifically drivers who want a change of pace or surroundings. After all, communications skills and an understanding of the driver’s tasks are two of the greatest assets a dispatcher can bring to the job. Who’s better qualified than a former driver?

The truth is, not every driver makes the switch with ease. One reason, according to Larry Dyck, owner and president of Winnipeg-based tank carrier Jade Transport, is that some drivers don’t always see the bigger picture. “Drivers aren’t always privy to the whole scenario,” he says. “And it isn’t always obvious over the telephone why certain decisions are made.” If you looked at a skill profile for a dispatcher, near the top of the list you’d find such talents as negotiating skills, conflict resolution, salesmanship, strategic thinking, and computer literacy. It’s important that dispatchers see that bigger picture.

Tools of the Trade

The art of dispatching can be taught, although some would say that a dispatcher, like a good musician, either has it or he doesn’t. Patrick Pagé has it. He manages 75 trucks and drivers operating in southwestern Ontario from an office in Boucherville, Que., for Transport Robert.

He started trucking in the Canadian Armed Forces, and was injured in Bosnia a few years ago. When he returned to civilian life, he continued trucking with Montreal-based LTL carrier Thorco Transport, making 20 or 25 drops in Chicago, then 15 or 20 pickups before heading back. When his wife became pregnant, he felt he needed to spend more time closer to home, so he decided to try his hand at dispatch. It was a big adjustment.

“After coming in off the road where I was my own boss and setting my own schedule, I had to try fitting in to everybody else’s plans at work and around home. It was a challenge,” Pagé acknowledges. “But that was only half the battle.”

It took him a while to forget about the steering wheel. “I’d sit there in the chair and try to convince myself that I was doing the job properly, trying to convince myself that I was a dispatcher now, not a driver. Trying to deal with the self-doubt that I hadn’t done the best I could on every load.”

Pagé says he had enough computer skills to get by in the beginning, but learned more as he went along. He had experience with LTL freight as a driver, so he was certainly aware of those challenges, and he possessed the human relations skills needed to manage the drivers and office staff equally well.

“I guess I was better at the job than I thought I’d be,” he says. “And when I came to Transport Robert, they really put those new skills to the test.”

Pagé fared well in the new job because he had the attitude and the aptitude for it. He learned the rest as he went along. And as you might imagine, there’s a lot to learn before you can allow yourself the luxury of believing you’re doing it right. There’s a lot more to the job than dispatching trucks to pick up loads. Actually, that’s the easy part.

Larway Transportation’s Rob Neill sees himself as a problem-solver first, and a negotiator and salesman as well, all at the same time. Like his counterpart at Transport Robert, Neill came to the job right off the road.

“I spoke the driver’s language,” Neill says. “And I knew the routine. But that’s about all I had going for me at the time.” He had learned the basics: how to boo freight and maintain the accounts-when the existing dispatcher gave his two-weeks notice. Then he left a week early, leaving Neill in charge. Fortunately, he says, “The electronics, satellite communications, and using the computers to scan for loads are all learnable skills.”

Neill believes computers and other electronic tools have helped the dispatcher immeasurably, both in terms of saving time on the job and freeing him up to deal with the drivers on a more personal level.

On the other hand, a driver might be blessed with all the mechanical skills in the world, but if he’s just not a people person, then forget dispatch. It’s hard enough to attract and retain good drivers. The last thing you need is a lousy dispatcher driving them out the door as fast as the recruiters are bringing them in.

“When you’re in the office, there’s a whole bunch of people asking a whole bunch of questions and a whole bunch of favors,” says Pagé. “You get it from all over the place, not just from one person: customer service, the boss, the dock, the drivers. It takes a while before you can sit in this chair and say to yourself, ‘Okay. I’m a dispatcher now. I’m not a driver anymore.’ It takes a while to forget about that steering wheel.”