Title: A process-oriented system for mobile dispatcher-driver communication of road haulage contractors

Authors: Elmar Erkens

Addresses: Faculty of Economics, University of Bremen, Wilhelm-Herbst-Str. 5, Bremen 28359, Germany

Abstract: Within the transportation business, we can observe a tendency towards the integration of the ongoing delivery process within in-house processes. The idea is to strike for the goal of laying the foundation for dynamic vehicle planning as well as vehicle control. In order to achieve this it will be necessary to improve on the often cost-intensive, time-consuming and error-prone mobile communications between dispatchers and drivers typical for medium-sized German transport operators. The following paper describes a communication system for vehicle-fleet control that supports the working processes of the driver as well as the forwarding agent. We have succeeded in substituting the prevalent mobile vocal communication with a continuous databased communication. Both parties are now enabled to obtain online access to all necessary and updated information needed for their individual sequence of operation at any time.

Keywords: order analysis; mobile communications; commercial road haulage; process model; job control; driver acceptance; vehicle master display; dynamic vehicle planning; Germany; vehicle fleet control; dispatcher-driver communication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2004.006615

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 2004 Vol.4 No.4, pp.324 - 336

Published online: 28 Mar 2005 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article