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Dear Dr. Ecommerce:

How can I use the Internet to communicate with drivers in their cabs?

Alan

Dear Alan:

Very carefully if you want to avoid accidents! Have you ever tried to type and drive at the same time?

It really depends on what you want to do and your relationship with the drivers.

For example, you might establish an online auction system matching independent drivers with empty lorries to people with loads that need to be hauled. Drivers on the road, perhaps returning home from a job or carrying a partial load, could accept bids to carry loads whose destinations are compatible with their journeys.

If the lorries were a part of your own firm, you might be more interested in setting up software that transmitted data about the vehicles, such as location, route, load, etc, to your office in order to improve efficiency. Such a system could also immediately report problems such as accidents, theft and the like.

As e-commerce encourages small deliveries with short notification, large vehicles will more and more often be required to ship numerous small loads over complex routes which change as a customer requests a new delivery as soon as possible. With logistics software to derive the most efficient routes and lorries communicating information to your office, you could use the Internet to keep drivers informed of the best routes and request they pick up new loads and abandon others (perhaps because another driver would more efficiently be able to deliver it).

Finally, if you want to be nice to your drivers, you could develop some features for them, such as a notification system when two drivers are in the vicinity of each other so they can chat on a CB (or online equivalent) or stop for a coffee. You could also encourage email communication with their families.

Dr. Ecommerce