How-to: Driver Time Record w/o Extra Devices

Updated on November 21, 2022 by Yulia Miashkova

If you can't track your drivers' hours of service (HOS), you're doing logistics wrong.

For one thing, as a manager, you need to supervise HOS compliance. On top of that, you need to be able to track billable hours and compensate your drivers accordingly.

The good news is that you don't need dedicated time tracking software to monitor your drivers' working hours. A delivery driver app is a perfectly viable time tracking tool.

Read on to find out how you can use the time tracking feature of delivery software to generate reports, evaluate driver performance, and ensure compliance.

The perks of having a driver time record

Hours of service limits for commercial drivers are stipulated in HOS regulations. They are different for property-carrying and passenger-carrying drivers. Furthermore, HOS limits differ for cases of force majeure, e.g. adverse driving conditions.

There's more to having a driver time record than following HOS regulations. Below are some of the benefits of tracking your drivers' time spent working.

Driver tracking

Recording drivers' working hours is impossible without deploying GPS trackers. Having GPS vehicle and driver tracking, in turn, comes with greater visibility of the entire logistics process.

When you can track the location of your drivers in real-time, you can minimize unnecessary interactions: dispatcher to driver and customer to back office.

By sharing a live tracking link with customers, you eliminate calls on the status of delivery and improve your delivery success rate.

Performance evaluation

Delivery drivers' performance evaluation is incomplete without tracking mileage and time spent delivering/collecting packages.

Time reports are a natural extension of courier software, allowing you to compare planned vs actual mileage and time and see whether the original estimate holds true.

By doing this, you can compare performance and reward the team members who can meet customers' time slots and ETAs.

Forecast management

Driver time record is what allows you to make better forecasts.

• How many drivers you need on any given week/month.
• How many orders you can deliver with your resources.
• Whether or not you need contract drivers.
• What your budget should be for fuel.
• How to best match order fulfillment to the battery life of EVs.

Simply put, tracking hours of service for each of your drivers makes you a better and more efficient planner.

Real-time GPS tracking device: do you need one?

We've established earlier in this guide that you don't need dedicated time tracking software to keep a clear time record and monitor driver compliance.

Do you need a real-time GPS tracking device for each of your drivers then?

While you do need a real-time GPS tracking device to monitor driver location, this doesn't have to be an external GPS tracker.

As long as your drivers use a delivery driver app, their working hours will be logged automatically.

This means that the only thing you need to track billable hours for your drivers is the drivers' smartphones. No extra devices to procure and install, and no gaps in the driver time record.

Time tracking report in Track-POD

Hours of service insights are an essential part of last-mile analytics. In Track-POD delivery software, the time record belongs to the Driver Statistics report.

Time tracking fields included in the report display start time, close time, and total hours for each day as well as total billable hours for a period of time.

Meanwhile, by downloading the Cost Savings by Time/Distance report, you access predictive analytics for route planning as you get to compare planned vs actual HOS.

As you can see, both reports give you a precise driver time record as well as business insights and better forecast management. Track-POD stores analytics for up to 2 years, which gives you a good perspective on driver performance over time.

Wrapping up

Tracking driver hours is a key part of logistics management. Apart from being a legal requirement, HOS is an excellent way to tap into performance insights and uncover gaps that slow you down.

I hope this guide gives you food for thought and actionable tips on keeping a clear driver time record with no extra tools. If you're ready to try Track-POD delivery driver app and time tracking reports, book a free demo, and we'll give you a tour.