PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Routes & Dispatch

Handing a Porta Potty Route to a New or Fill-In Driver

Every company has the driver who knows a route by heart. That is great until the day they are sick, on vacation or gone. Then a fill-in driver has to run the route cold, and every stop that lived only in someone's memory becomes a problem. The previous article, Routing Rental Pickups On Time So Extra Days Bill Right, covered pickups and rental days. This one covers the person behind the wheel when the usual driver is not.

The Goal: The Route Lives on the Job, Not in a Head

A fill-in driver can only run a route as well as the information on it. That is why everything in this silo keeps coming back to notes: unit type, quantity, unit numbers, placement notes, gate and access notes. When those are on every stop, a new driver can run the route with a phone and a truck. When they are not, the new driver spends the day calling the office.

Units and Placement Notes on Every Stop: What Dispatch Hands the Driver covers what good notes look like. The day a fill-in driver runs a route is the day you find out whether yours are good enough.

Setting Up the Driver

Add the driver as an employee with a personal PIN and assign them to the truck they will drive. They log into the driver app with the company login and their PIN. The app works in the browser on iPhone and Android and can be installed on the home screen, so there is nothing to set up on the phone beyond logging in.

You are never billed per user, so a part-time or seasonal fill-in driver does not add software cost.

Moving the Route

If the fill-in is driving the usual truck, the route is already assigned to that truck, and the new driver sees it in order. If they are driving a different truck, move the stops to their truck on the dispatch board. Either way, check the order before they leave. A route that the regular driver runs in a slightly different order than the app shows needs fixing now, because the fill-in will follow the app.

What the Driver Sees

For each stop, the driver app shows the address with a Map button that opens navigation, the unit type, quantity and unit numbers, the placement notes, and any other notes. The driver taps Start when they begin a stop, takes photos if needed, and taps Complete or Skip when done. The on-the-way and arrived texts go to the customer automatically.

That is enough for most stops. The ones that are not enough are the ones to check before the day starts.

Five Minutes Before They Leave

Before the fill-in driver rolls, the dispatcher should look over the route and flag:

• Sites with gates, codes or check-in rules.
• Big sites with many units spread out.
• Stops with time windows.
• Stops where the regular driver does something not written down.

That last one is the dangerous one. Call the regular driver if you can and ask what they would tell someone running their route. Then write it on the jobs so it is there next time.

Ride Along When You Can

For a new hire who will run the route regularly, a day or two riding with the usual driver is still worth it. The driver app carries the information, but a ride-along shows the habits: where to park the truck at a tight site, which units always need extra paper, which superintendent likes a wave on the way in. Have the new driver hold the phone and work the app during the ride-along, so by the time they drive alone, they have already run the route from the same screen they will use every day.

A fill-in covering one sick day will not get that luxury, which is exactly why the notes on each job matter so much.

Support During the Day

Keep an eye on the office map. Crew GPS shows where the fill-in driver is, so you can see if they are stuck or lost before they call. If they skip a stop, look at the note right away; a fill-in skip is often a missing gate code that the office can text over in a minute.

After the Day

When the regular driver returns, ask the fill-in what was hard. Every stop where they got stuck is a stop with a missing note. Fix those notes, and the next fill-in day will be easier. Over time, every route becomes one that any driver can run.

That is not just insurance for sick days. It is what lets a company grow, take vacations and hire without fear. For more on running routes and dispatch, see PortaPottyBossPro portable toilet route software.