TowingBossPro Blog — Roadside Assistance

Fitting Roadside Calls Into a Full Dispatch Board

Roadside calls rarely arrive on an empty board. They land in the middle of a day already full of scheduled transports, impound releases, dealer runs and tows. The trick is fitting a twenty-minute lockout into that day without wrecking everything else, and without leaving a stranded customer waiting two hours.

See the Whole Day at Once

Roadside Service for Commercial Accounts: Fleets, Dealers and Property Managers covered commercial accounts, which often bring scheduled work. The dispatch board is where scheduled and unscheduled work meet. TowingBossPro shows every truck by day with its route order, so the dispatcher can see what each driver has ahead of them.

When a roadside call drops onto the waiting list map, the question is not just who is closest right now. It is who has room in their day near that location.

The board also shows you what each driver is carrying. A driver with a car on the deck heading to an impound lot cannot do a jump start until they drop it. A driver with an empty truck between transports can. The categories on each stop make that easy to see.

Slot Roadside Calls Between Stops

Short roadside calls are perfect fillers. A driver heading back from a transport drop past a shopping center can pick up a jump start on the way. A driver with a gap before an afternoon impound release can take a lockout. Look at the route order, find the gap or the pass-by, and assign the call to that driver and truck in one step.

When you add a call to a truck that already has stops, auto-routing can reorder the day. Check the result. A stranded customer on a highway shoulder usually should not wait behind a scheduled dealer run that has flexibility.

Communicate the change to the driver as you make it. The new call appears in the driver app in route order, but a quick heads-up about why helps, especially if the driver was expecting to head somewhere else next. Drivers who understand the plan follow it.

Protect the Scheduled Work That Cannot Move

Some scheduled work has a hard time: a transport with a pickup window, an account that expects its vehicles moved before opening. Mark those clearly in notes so nobody shoves a roadside call in front of them. The roadside call goes to another truck, or slots in after.

The opposite is also true. Some scheduled work is flexible. A transport that can happen any time today can slide an hour to make room for a stranded driver.

When you do have to push scheduled work, tell the affected customer early. A transport customer told at nine that their pickup is moving from ten to eleven is usually fine. One who finds out at ten-thirty is not.

Keep One Truck Light When You Can

On days you expect roadside volume, like the first cold morning or a holiday weekend, consider keeping one light truck with a thinner schedule. That driver becomes your roadside responder, picking up calls from the waiting list map as they come in, while the rest of the fleet runs the scheduled work.

That driver's day should still be on the board, even if it is mostly empty. Pre-position them where you expect calls, and give them a few flexible tasks that can be dropped the moment a roadside call comes in. An idle truck is not a waste when it means the next stranded customer gets help in fifteen minutes instead of an hour.

Keep Drivers and Customers in the Loop

Every time you change a driver's route, the driver app updates with the new order. Drivers should not have to call to find out what is next. And when a roadside customer's wait changes because of scheduled work, a short two-way text keeps them informed.

Learn From the Week

At the end of the week, look at how roadside calls fit into the board. Reports show volume by category. If roadside calls regularly pile up at certain times of day or in certain areas, plan for it: position a truck, shift a scheduled run, or adjust shifts.

Also look at which drivers end up with the most roadside calls slotted into their days. Spreading that work fairly keeps one driver from feeling like the default for every small call, and it keeps your scheduled work on time across the fleet.

The next article covers night and weekend coverage. For dispatch, the driver app and billing together, visit the roadside assistance software overview.