From a 3-to-7 board built by memory — to a plan you can run as-is
From 3 to 7 every afternoon, your dispatcher is filling tomorrow's board by hand.
It is not one decision. It is hundreds. Which driver has hours left. Who holds the tanker endorsement. When the rack opens and what happens if a gate runs long. Which load the customer will call about if it does not move first. Which driver was promised a specific run and cannot be bumped.
Most planning tools ignore this entirely. They produce a board that looks complete on a screen and falls apart the first time a driver checks in.
The result: a 2–3 hour afternoon build cycle, phone calls at 4 p.m. when a qualification mismatch surfaces, and a plan that required your best dispatcher to hold it all in his head.
Nivio Dispatch was built inside that reality — by a former 100-truck bulk fleet operator who ran it for ten years. Every rule your dispatcher carries in his head is an input to the plan, not a problem to solve after the plan is printed.
Hours tracked per driver — a plan with no clock surprises at 4:15
Most planning tools apply hours of service as a fleet-wide threshold. That is not how HOS works on the ground.
Nivio Dispatch reads hours individually, per driver:
- 14-hour duty window — the clock starts when the driver reports, not when the first load rolls.
- 11-hour drive limit — tracked against what each driver has already used today, not a fleet average.
- 30-minute break requirement — built into load sequencing so the break falls at a logical point, not mid-delivery.
- 70-hour/8-day cycle — the plan accounts for a driver who has been run hard three days running. He does not get overloaded on day four.
The plan also carries driver reality: who is on today, who is already rolling, who is due home, and how many hours each person has left. A driver with four hours on the clock does not get a six-hour run. That constraint is resolved before the plan is printed, not at 4:15 when he calls in.
No driver gets a load they cannot legally finish.
Qualifications cleared before dispatch — every assignment already legal
In tank and bulk operations, the wrong driver on the wrong load is not an inefficiency. It is a compliance failure.
Nivio Dispatch clears every qualification before an assignment is confirmed:
- Hazmat endorsement — only drivers who hold it are considered for hazmat loads. No manual cross-check required.
- Tank vehicle endorsement — matched to tanker equipment rules automatically. If only one driver on today's board holds the endorsement, the plan knows.
- TWIC — terminal access requirements are resolved in the plan, not at the gate.
- Customer-approved driver lists — a load restricted to named drivers stays restricted. No other driver is routed to it.
- Training and skills tags — food-grade loads, chemical loads, and specialised commodity requirements are matched to driver qualification records before the assignment is made.
These are not filters applied after a plan is generated. They are constraints the Proprietary Algorithm works within from the first calculation. The plan that comes back is already legal.
Rack windows and terminal hours — one late gate, no cascade
A bulk plan lives or dies on timing. Rack windows close. Terminals have cutoffs. One late gate pulls the next pickup off schedule if the plan has no buffer.
Nivio Dispatch builds timing constraints into every chain:
- Rack and terminal opening hours — loads are sequenced around when a location is actually accessible, not an assumed 24-hour window.
- Appointment windows — fixed customer delivery times are hard constraints, not suggestions the plan works around when convenient.
- Load and unload times — actual dwell times for bulk and tank operations, not generic transit estimates.
- Detention buffer — the plan includes time between stops so a single delayed gate does not pull the next load off schedule.
- Driver proximity chaining — a driver drops near the next pickup. Empty miles become paid miles. The plan is built so loads chain logically rather than sending a driver back across the region.
The solver returns this complete plan — rack windows, HOS, endorsements, appointment times, all of it — in under 5 minutes (modelled from the algorithm against representative bulk fleet data, not a measured customer result).
The hierarchy your dispatcher holds in his head — already in the order
Every dispatcher carries a priority sequence in his head. Urgent loads move before priority loads. Aged loads get bumped up before the customer calls. A pre-load set last night holds its position unless something material changes. A load already promised to a specific driver does not get touched when the plan re-solves.
Nivio Dispatch works with all of these:
| Load type | How the plan handles it |
|---|---|
| Urgent | Moves to the front of the solve regardless of other sequencing |
| Priority | Weighted above standard loads in driver assignment |
| Aged | Age flag triggers automatic elevation before customer escalation |
| Pre-loads | Held in position from the previous planning cycle |
| Auto hauls | Recurring lanes schedule themselves without manual re-entry |
| Locked loads | Driver assignment is fixed; everything else re-solves around it |
The dispatcher can lock, move, or re-run any load before a driver is dispatched. The plan is a starting point with every rule already applied — not a rigid output.
Keep your TMS and ELD — Nivio Dispatch layers on top
Nivio Dispatch does not replace McLeod, TMW, Samsara, or Motive. It runs alongside them.
Your TMS holds the load record. Your ELD holds the hours log. Nivio Dispatch reads both, applies the Proprietary Algorithm across every load and every driver, and returns a plan the dispatcher can act on — in the same afternoon, inside the same workflow.
There is no rip-and-replace. No retraining campaign. No choosing between systems.
The dispatcher still decides what rolls. Nivio handles the arithmetic that was consuming 2–3 hours of every afternoon. With Nivio, that drops to under 30 minutes — of which the solver itself takes under 5. The time that remains is what the dispatcher spends making real adjustments: locking a load, moving a driver, re-running a section of the board.
That is the point. Not removing the dispatcher — giving him his afternoon back.
2–3 hours by hand — under 30 minutes with the solver
Today, a dispatcher at a bulk or tank fleet builds tomorrow's plan by hand. The approved benchmark for that process: 2–3 hours per afternoon, every day.
With Nivio Dispatch (figures are modelled from the Proprietary Algorithm against representative bulk fleet data, not measured customer results):
- The Proprietary Algorithm runs the full solve in under 5 minutes
- The complete planning cycle — including dispatcher review and adjustments — lands at under 30 minutes
What the dispatcher does with the time that remains is not a feature. It is the job: knowing which load to move, which driver to protect, which customer to call before they call you. That is the work. Nivio Dispatch clears the hours of arithmetic so he can do it.
Social card
Card headline (two lines, payoff on line two in brand accent): Line 1: Every rule on your board — Line 2 [accent]: already in the plan.
Card body (one sentence): No driver gets a load they cannot legally finish.
Link: niviolab.com
Alt text: Nivio Dispatch social card. Headline reads: Every rule on your board — already in the plan. Body reads: No driver gets a load they cannot legally finish.
FAQ
Does Nivio Dispatch replace our existing TMS or ELD? No. Nivio Dispatch reads your TMS load records and ELD hours data and layers the Proprietary Algorithm on top of both. Your current systems stay in place. There is no rip-and-replace, no retraining campaign, and no workflow disruption for your dispatch team.
How long does the planning solve actually take? The Proprietary Algorithm returns a complete plan — HOS, endorsements, rack windows, load priority, all constraints applied — in under 5 minutes (modelled against representative bulk fleet data). The full planning cycle, including dispatcher review and adjustments, lands at under 30 minutes.
What happens if only one driver on today's board holds the tanker endorsement? The Proprietary Algorithm knows. Tanker endorsement is a hard constraint, not a post-solve filter. That driver is matched to tanker loads first, and the rest of the board is solved around that assignment. No manual cross-check is required and no compliance gap surfaces at dispatch.
Can the dispatcher override or adjust the plan after the solver runs? Yes. The dispatcher can lock any load to a specific driver, move loads between drivers, or re-run a section of the board before anyone is dispatched. The plan is a fully legal starting point with every rule already applied — the dispatcher retains complete control over final decisions.
Does the solver handle drivers who are already mid-shift when planning runs? Yes. The plan reads each driver's current hours individually — including drive time already used, duty window already open, and cycle hours accumulated over the prior eight days. A driver already rolling is planned around what he has left, not a fleet-average estimate.
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