Ready?
Transport Controller — your shift
Know before you promise. And a load that should not run, does not run. Read what this person needs, then tap the place that sorts it out.
Full screen — no distractions
What does a transport controller do?
You know where every lorry is, how many hours its driver has left, and which promise you are about to have to break.
Also called: fleet controller, traffic office, transport planner.
A day looks like
- 1You build the day's runs before the drivers arrive — which vehicle, which drops, which order, and who gets the awkward one.
- 2From seven you are on the phone and the tracker at the same time, re-planning a day that stopped matching the plan at 7:40.
- 3A driver rings to say the bay is blocked. You work out which two drops behind it are now late, and you ring those customers before they ring you.
- 4You sign the day off knowing exactly which loads ran, which did not, and why — because tomorrow somebody will ask.
Hardest part
Standing a load down. Everybody in the building wants it to go, the customer is waiting for it, and you are the one person who has to say the vehicle is not allowed to move.
Best part
A day where forty drops land, nobody runs out of hours and nothing goes off. Nobody outside the office ever knows how close it was.
How you actually become a transport controller
- At schoolNo degree needed. Most controllers come off the warehouse floor or out of a cab.
- TrainingLearn the desk on the job, then take the Transport Manager CPC if you want to run an operation.
- How longMonths to be useful on a desk, two or three years to hold a fleet on your own.
- Your first jobTransport clerk — paperwork, phone calls and watching somebody else make the calls.
Transport clerkTransport controllerTransport manager (CPC holder)
Frequently asked questions
- What does a transport controller actually control?
- Vehicles, drivers' legal hours, and promises. They decide which vehicle does which job in which order, and they are the person who has to re-plan the whole day the first time something goes wrong — which is usually before eight in the morning.
- Why can't a driver just finish the delivery?
- Because how long a driver may drive is set by law and recorded by a tachograph in the cab. Running over it is an offence for the driver and the operator, and the law exists because tired driving kills people. A controller who pushes a driver past it is not being helpful.
- Do you need qualifications to work in a transport office?
- Not to start. Most controllers come off the warehouse floor or out of a cab, which is why they are good at it. To be legally responsible for an operation you need the Transport Manager CPC, which you can take while working.