How to run a truck dispatch company

What does a truck dispatch company actually do?

There is no single legal definition of a dispatch service, and that is part of why the job description varies so much between companies. In practice a dispatch company acts as the operations desk for a carrier that does not want to run one in-house: it finds and books loads, keeps the driver informed, chases paperwork and reports back. Some dispatchers also handle billing support. Others stop at booking.

It helps to list your services explicitly, because each one sits at a different distance from the line FMCSA draws between a dispatch service and a broker. The table below maps common services to the factors in FMCSA’s 2023 guidance, which is covered in the next section.

Do dispatch companies need broker authority?

It depends on what you do, not on what you call yourself. Federal regulation defines a broker as a person who, for compensation, arranges or offers to arrange the transportation of property by an authorized motor carrier. The same section says motor carriers, and employees or bona fide agents of carriers, are not brokers. A bona fide agent is part of the carrier’s normal organization, acts under the carrier’s direction under a preexisting agreement, and has no discretion over how traffic is divided between that carrier and others.

In June 2023 FMCSA published final guidance applying those definitions to dispatch services. The guidance is non-binding and says so, but it is the clearest statement of how the agency reads the rule. It lists non-exhaustive factors in each direction. In summary, factors pointing to bona fide agent status include a written contract appointing the dispatcher as the carrier’s agent, working through a broker instead of soliciting shippers, not handling billing or taking pay from brokers or factoring companies, and arranging loads for only the carrier that appointed it. Factors pointing to broker authority include negotiating directly with a shipper, accepting compensation from a broker or factoring company, accepting a shipment before having a truck and then looking for one, and allocating a load that several client carriers could haul to one of them.

The last factor matters most for a company that serves several carriers. FMCSA’s guidance, as summarized by trade press, says a dispatcher representing multiple carriers needs to structure its agreements so it is not allocating traffic. Examples given are carriers with non-overlapping regions, different load types such as hazmat and non-hazmat, or different equipment such as refrigerated and flatbed. Two carriers with the same equipment and no geographic limits would put you in the position of choosing between them for each load, which is allocation.

What belongs in a carrier service agreement?

FMCSA’s first listed factor for bona fide agent status is a written contract appointing the dispatcher as the carrier’s agent that addresses insurance and liability. Even setting the regulatory angle aside, a written agreement is what keeps a dispatch relationship from turning into an argument about who promised what. Have a transportation attorney review yours. As a starting checklist, cover these points:

• Scope. Which services you perform, which you do not, and which loads or lanes fall under the agreement.
• Authority. What you may do in the carrier’s name, such as booking loads within a rate floor the carrier sets, and what needs the carrier’s approval.
• Fee basis. What the fee is calculated on, for example line haul only or line haul plus fuel surcharge, and how accessorials are treated. Spell out which figure counts as gross.
• Payment flow. Who pays whom and when. The carrier pays your fee under the contract; the guidance treats taking payment from brokers or factoring companies as a warning sign.
• Term and exit. Notice period, what happens to open loads, and how the carrier’s records are returned.
• Insurance and liability. Who is responsible for what when something goes wrong in transit or in booking.
• Records access. What the carrier can see and when, including load files, documents and fee statements.

What does a good daily dispatch routine look like?

A dispatcher’s day is easier to manage when it follows a fixed order. The sequence below is a template, not a prescription; adjust it to your clients’ time zones and lane mix.

1. Status sweep. List every in-transit load by carrier, with the next stop, appointment time and any exception from overnight.
2. Availability check. For each truck about to empty, confirm where it will be and how many driving hours the driver has left before you book anything.
3. Book. Match open loads to trucks, keep each booking inside the carrier’s agreed rate floor, and record the rate confirmation against the load immediately.
4. Check calls. Contact drivers at the stops that matter: pickup, delivery, and anywhere a delay would hit an appointment.
5. Paperwork. Chase BOLs and PODs for loads delivered today so they do not age into next week.
6. Close-out message. Send each carrier a short summary: what moved, what is booked tomorrow, anything that needs a decision.

Availability depends on federal hours-of-service limits, so build them into booking decisions. For property-carrying drivers, FMCSA’s summary lists an 11-hour driving limit after 10 consecutive hours off duty, a 14-hour window after coming on duty, a 30-minute break once 8 cumulative hours of driving have passed, and a 60-hour or 70-hour limit over 7 or 8 consecutive days. A 34-hour period off duty restarts the weekly count. The driver and the carrier own compliance. A dispatcher’s job is never to book a load that only works if those limits are ignored.

How should a dispatch company price its service?

Fee structures fall into a few families. None is universally right, and this guide does not cite a market rate because we could not source one reliably. Choose the structure that matches how your clients think about cost.

Whatever the structure, remember that a dispatch company’s real product is the carrier’s profit per truck per week, not gross revenue. A booking at a rate below the carrier’s cost per mile raises your fee and lowers their bank balance. Ask each client for a cost-per-mile figure, or have them work it out with the cost per mile calculator, and treat it as a floor when you book.

Which numbers should you track for each carrier client?

Keep the list short and define each term in writing so your team and your clients read the numbers the same way. We deliberately give no target values, because the right level depends on lanes, equipment and season.

• Revenue per truck per week. Total line haul and accessorials delivered, divided by active trucks.
• Rate per loaded mile against the carrier’s cost per loaded mile. The gap is what the carrier keeps before overhead.
• Deadhead share. Empty miles divided by total miles, per truck.
• Days from delivery to document in file. How long it takes the BOL and POD to reach the load record.
• Detention events. Count per week and whether each was billed.
• Open exceptions. Late, unassigned or missing-document loads at the close of each day.

What breaks first when you add more carriers?

Three things tend to fail in the same order. First, information mixes: a rate, a driver phone number or a document ends up in the wrong carrier’s thread. Second, knowledge concentrates in one person who remembers which client prefers which broker, so holidays and sick days become operational risks. Third, statements slip: fee calculations that were quick for two clients take a day for eight, and late statements are the quickest way to sour a relationship.

The fix for all three is structural rather than heroic. Give every carrier its own container for data, documents and money, and give every task a named owner. The companion guide on multi-carrier dispatch workflows goes through that structure in detail.