First, tell the difference
“Stopped tracking” is three different situations that look identical on a map, and the wrong response to each is expensive. Sort it before anyone picks up a phone.
Stale. The last position is older than it should be, but the truck was moving when it was recorded and nothing else is wrong. Usually a dead zone, a phone that went to sleep, or a share link page the driver's app stopped feeding. Most of these fix themselves inside twenty minutes. The right response is to wait a defined amount of time, then ask.
Parked. Positions are still arriving and they are all the same. The truck is stopped. That is not a tracking problem at all; it is a question of where and for how long. A truck stopped at a rest area for thirty minutes at 2 p.m. is a driver taking the break the law requires. A truck stopped in a residential street for three hours at 10 a.m. on the day of delivery is a phone call.
Lost. No position for long enough that the last one no longer tells you where the truck is. On LoadSignal's default thresholds that is about an hour, which is roughly sixty highway miles of not knowing. This is the one that needs a person, and the one the ladder below is for.
The point of sorting first is that only the third case is an emergency, and treating the first two as one is how dispatchers end up calling drivers who are on a mandated break, which is how drivers end up turning tracking off.
The first thirty minutes
These timings are a reasoned default. They are what LoadSignal ships with, and they are set per organisation because a reefer of produce and a flatbed of lumber do not deserve the same clock. Have your most experienced dispatcher check them before a customer sees them.
| Since last position | State | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 10 minutes | Fine | Nothing. This is normal. |
| 10 to 20 minutes | Watch | The load is marked on the board so a glance shows it. No human yet. |
| 20 to 60 minutes | Stale | A reminder goes to the driver by text, and the people watching the load are told. One of them calls the driver once. |
| Past 60 minutes | Lost | The ladder below starts, and the customer-facing ETA is withdrawn rather than left standing. |
The one rule in that table that people push back on is the last cell. When you no longer know where the truck is, the ETA on the customer's page should say so. An ETA computed from an hour-old position is a number you are hoping is true, and a customer who plans a dock crew around it will not thank you for the optimism.
The escalation ladder
Three rungs, in order, each with a wait before the next. Skip a rung and you are calling a carrier's dispatcher about a driver who has not been texted yet.
- The driver, by text then by call. Text first, because a driver on the road reads a text at the next stop and cannot take a call. The text should say what you need and why, in one line: “Tracking on load 4471 stopped at 1:40. Can you tap the link or confirm your location?” If there is no reply in fifteen minutes, call once. Leave a voicemail that says the same thing.
- The carrier's dispatcher. Not to complain. To ask whether they can see the truck on their own ELD, which they usually can, and whether the driver is on a break, swapped trucks, or in trouble. Note the time you called and what they said. If the rate confirmation carries a tracking clause, this call is also the record that the gap was raised.
- Your customer, before they ask. If the delivery window is now at risk, the customer hears it from you first. The wording is in the next section. If the window is not at risk, the customer does not need to know a truck went quiet for ninety minutes in Kentucky.
Every step should be written on the load: who was contacted, when, by what channel, and what they said. That record is for the dispatcher who picks the load up at shift change and would otherwise start from the top, and only afterwards for anyone auditing it.
What to tell the customer
Short, specific, and with a next time. “Load 4471: we lost tracking on the truck at 1:40 p.m. near Bowling Green. The carrier confirms the driver is on a required break and expects to roll by 3. The delivery window tomorrow at 6 a.m. is still on. We will update you by 4 p.m. either way.” Three sentences, one commitment, no apology for something that has not gone wrong yet.
What not to send: anything a system wrote on its own. Software can draft that message with the facts filled in, and it should, because the facts are what take the time. But a person reads it and presses send. A customer who receives an automated “tracking lost” email at 2 a.m. about a truck that was parked at a Pilot will remember it for longer than they remember the on-time delivery.
Making it rarer
Put tracking in the rate confirmation. A clause that says tracking is required and names a consequence for a gap changes behaviour at booking, not at 2 a.m. The clause guide has language for it.
Have two sources on the loads that matter. A driver app and a carrier share link on the same load means a dead phone is not a dark truck. Share links are free to ask for and most carriers send one without argument.
Stop calling drivers on breaks. A board that shows a parked truck as parked, with how long it has been there, and that knows a thirty-minute stop at 2 p.m. is a break, does not generate the call that makes drivers turn tracking off. Fewer of those calls this month is fewer dark trucks next month.
Making it run itself
Everything above except the phone calls and the customer's send button is a rule with a clock on it. LoadSignal checks active loads on a five-minute schedule and on relevant events. Stale tracking raises an exception. Rules your team enables can send a driver check-in, and an unacknowledged exception escalates on your configured schedule. A share link that has expired is its own exception the moment the page says so. A stop longer than your threshold is flagged with where and for how long. The customer message is drafted with the facts in it and waits for a person.
Whether the automated steps happen at all, and how far they go without approval, is a setting per rule, and it starts off. The track and trace page describes the operator that runs the ladder, and the FAQ answers what happens when nobody picks up an alert.