Despatch - July 14th, 2008 by Diplomat Guru
The Despatch Screen
The Despatch screen is designed to give the Despatcher as much information as possible. It allows the user to despatch jobs to drivers based on which driver is closest, who has been waiting longest and client preference.
A job can be manually despatched just by dragging and dropping the job onto the driver ball. The Despatch screen can be customised to show just the screen elements the Despatcher wants to see. Handy mouse mats which indicate all of the icons are available on request.
The Plot Area & Driver Status
The Plot Area shows the distribution of jobs and drivers in the plots. Each driver is represented by a coloured ball and the colour indicates the current driver status.
Driver Queues
There are three driver queues visible on the Despatch Screen and they can be turned on or off as required:
The Plot Queue
shows the order of drivers within a single plot
The Overall Queue
shows which driver has been waiting the longest for a job based on when they last cleared
The Feeder Queue
shows the closest driver to the selected job in distance order even if the driver has a passenger on board (POB) or is soon to clear.
Vehicle Suggestion
Navigator can suggest which vehicle is the most suitable for each job. These decisions are made by taking certain factors into consideration; distance from job and who’s been cleared the longest. When data is installed this process can be automated using AutoDespatch.
Auto Despatch & Despatcher Mode
Alternatively “data” sites can utilise the incredibly powerful Auto Despatch feature which when in operation makes the decisions that the Despatcher would normally make about the suitability of drivers for jobs and will automatically despatch jobs to drivers without intervention from the Despatcher. However, we have found that private hire companies have different criteria for making these decisions. For example, if there isn’t a driver in the plot for a job, some companies may offer it to a driver in the next nearest plot, whilst others may offer it to the driver who has been waiting longest regardless of their current location. With this in mind we have developed “Despatcher Mode” where you can decide which criteria are used when the system makes these decisions.
Bidding
If data is being used you can allow your drivers to “bid” for work. Some companies will allow or disallow bidding depending on how busy they are. For example, if there’s lots of work, drivers may be allowed to bid to keep the work flowing, however if there isn’t much work, bidding might be turned off so the distribution of work can be controlled and is therefore fairer and more evenly distributed between the drivers. Bidding can be turned on or off for individual drivers or globally for all drivers.