A truck dispatcher works for a single carrier, either as an employee or  as a “bonafide agent” of the carrier company.  The truck dispatcher’s  primary duties are to:

• Find available loads for the empty (or soon to be empty) trucks owned by or leased to your trucking company
• Negotiate load rates with freight brokers or agents
• Review/signs carrier contracts, reviews/signs rate and/or load confirmations, and send your carrier packets to brokers or agents
• Dispatch the drivers of your empty trucks to pick-up the loads you’ve booked
• Track your loaded trucks through delivery

A dispatcher looks at a schedule that includes all of his drivers,  where they are coming from, where they are at any moment, and where they  are going. A dispatcher has to plan ahead, looking for loads for drivers to pick up so the driver is not just sitting and making no money.

The size of a company can determine what duties are required of a dispatcher. A small company dispatcher may only have 10 drivers but have more  duties than the dispatchers at a larger company, who has more that  50-100 drivers to manage.

Generally, within a small company, a dispatcher not only  schedules drivers, but has a lot of other responsibilities. They provide  drivers with the name and address of where they need to pick up and  deliver freight, along with the pickup and delivery times.

Often providing drivers with weather reports along any given route, providing the driver with alternative routes.  The dispatcher negotiates for loads with brokers, inputs the rate  confirmation details into a computer system, verifies that drivers  received signed bill of lading, obtains a copy from the driver, then  sends the copy to the broker for verification of piece count, damaged  freight detention, and lumper fees.