A subcontracted trip starts with an agreement with the carrier. Hiring a vehicle does not automatically grant access to its location. Agree on the participants, information source and working process before the first customer asks, “Where is the vehicle?”

Start with the dispatcher’s decision

A trip can have dozens of fields. For the first workflow, choose one working question: do you need to follow up on progress, update the customer or review a completed trip?

If the task is to decide which trip needs a call, start with a small set: the last known position, its recording time, its source and the latest confirmed participant update. Keep a planned unloading window separate from an actual arrival.

Agree on five groups of information

  1. Trip and participants. An internal trip reference, the responsible carrier, driver and person to contact about connectivity. You do not need to collect every document or cargo detail at the first step.
  2. Update source. The driver’s phone, an agreed hardware tracker or updates to the dispatcher. Establish who connects the source and checks it is working.
  3. Position and recording time. Message delivery time is a separate fact. A point delivered late does not become fresh.
  4. Confirmed operational updates. For example, the driver’s report of arrival or unloading. Keep the source and time with the update, and give corrections a clear explanation.
  5. Access boundaries. Who can see the information, for which trip, for how long and who ends sharing. Explain the process to the driver before work begins.

Illustrative example: the position was recorded at 12:40 and received at 12:48. At 12:48, the dispatcher has an eight-minute-old position. A question about arrival right now needs a follow-up.

Decide what to do when updates stop

An old position does not explain the cause. Mobile data may be unavailable, the phone may have stopped recording or the participant may have ended sharing. Position age alone cannot distinguish these situations.

Before the first trip, agree:

  • when a lack of updates needs attention for this particular route;
  • whom the dispatcher contacts first;
  • where the follow-up result is recorded;
  • what the customer is told while fresh information is unavailable.

This process is useful even without automatic notifications. Missing information becomes a reason for a defined action rather than an assumption that the vehicle’s position is known.

Check a repeat trip

After the first trip, review more than the map. Could another driver be connected? Did the driver understand work sharing? How many follow-ups did the dispatcher need? Were gaps in the history visible?

Record observations and reasons people declined. One successful screen demonstration does not establish that the workflow is convenient to repeat with different carriers.

What to ask a service provider

Ask about supported phones, recording without mobile data, last-position timestamps, ending access and history availability. If your TMS is essential, confirm the status of that particular integration before the pilot.

We are developing Cargo Polis around visibility into own and subcontracted trips. The first workflow uses an Android phone and a standalone web workspace. Devices, available features and terms are confirmed before onboarding.