A dispatcher decides which vehicles go out, with which drivers and loads, and in what order they serve their stops, then follows the routes until the vehicles are back. In Italian transport and distribution companies the function is called the ufficio traffico (traffic office) and the person who runs it a disponente. In smaller firms it’s often one person, planning routes while fielding calls from drivers.
What a dispatcher does during the day
The job has two halves. Before departure, the dispatcher collects orders, assigns them to vehicles within capacity and delivery time windows, builds the stop sequence and hands the routes to drivers. During the day, they follow progress and handle delays, urgent orders and failed deliveries, moving stops between vehicles when needed. At the end of the day they collect the delivery outcomes.
How software changes the role
Where routes are built in Excel, the first half takes up much of the morning and depends on the planner’s memory: which customer opens late, which road to avoid, which driver knows the area. Route optimization software calculates the sequence within the constraints, and a control tower shows the state of every route without calling drivers one by one.
The dispatcher doesn’t disappear. The role shifts from building routes to managing exceptions, and what they know about customers becomes a set of written constraints instead of a habit. The shift is described in our article on moving from Excel to automated route planning.
FAQ
Is a dispatcher the same as a fleet manager?
No, though in small companies one person often does both. The dispatcher works on the day: who delivers what, today and tomorrow. The fleet manager works on the vehicles over time: purchasing, maintenance, costs, renewals.
What is a dispatcher called in Italian?
In freight transport the trade terms are disponente and addetto all’ufficio traffico. Pianificatore, the planner, describes the part of the job done before departure.