PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Routes & Dispatch

Service Trucks vs Delivery Trucks: Routing Two Kinds of Portable Toilet Work

A pump truck and a delivery truck are both trucks, but they are not doing the same job. One empties, cleans and restocks units on site. The other hauls units out and brings them back. Routing them the same way wastes the strengths of each. In Splitting Porta Potty Work Across Trucks Without Crossing Paths, we covered splitting work by area. This article covers splitting work by the kind of truck.

What a Service Truck Needs

A pump truck, or service truck, carries a waste tank, a fresh water tank, chemicals and supplies. Its day is a loop of stops where the driver pumps, rinses, recharges, restocks paper and sanitizer, and moves on. What limits it is tank space, water, and the number of units it can service in a day.

Service routes are the steady part of the business. Most units on a weekly rental get serviced on the same day each week, which means a service truck's route is mostly the same week to week. That steadiness is a huge advantage. It is what lets drivers learn their sites and customers learn their day.

What a Delivery Truck Needs

A delivery truck or trailer is limited by deck space and the type of unit. Several Standard units fit on one load. A Restroom Trailer is its own trip. High-Rise / Crane units need a site that is ready for a lift. ADA Accessible units are larger and heavier.

Delivery routes are much less predictable. They follow contracts starting, events booking and remodels beginning. Pickups follow rentals ending. A delivery truck's day can look completely different from one week to the next.

Why Separate Them

When one truck does both, every delivery breaks up the service loop. The driver services three units, drives back to the yard to load units for a delivery, delivers them across town, and returns to finish service. The service customers who were after the delivery now get serviced late.

Running service and deliveries as separate routes keeps the service loop steady and lets the delivery route be built around what is on the deck. Each truck does what it is built to do.

There is a second benefit. A delivery driver who only runs deliveries and pickups gets good at the parts of that work that are easy to get wrong: reading placement notes on a busy site, setting units level, checking unit numbers against the job before leaving the yard. A service driver who only runs service gets good at moving fast through a steady loop. Specialists make fewer mistakes, and fewer mistakes mean fewer return trips and fewer calls to the office.

Setting Up the Split

In PortaPottyBossPro, set up each truck and assign employees to trucks. When building routes:

• Assign recurring service stops to the pump trucks by area.
• Assign deliveries and pickups to the delivery truck, grouped so one load serves nearby sites.
• Filter the dispatch board by truck to check each route on its own.

Because each job shows the unit type, quantity and unit numbers under the address, the dispatcher can see what the delivery truck needs to load before it leaves.

When to Combine Them

Small companies with one or two trucks often cannot separate the work, and that is fine. Combining makes sense when:

• The delivery is small, such as one or two Standard units that fit on a trailer behind the pump truck.
• The delivery is right on the service route.
• A pickup is at a site the pump truck is already visiting.

When you combine, think about order. Deliveries go early while there is room; pickups go late so the truck is not hauling units all day. Mixing Deliveries, Services and Pickups on One Porta Potty Route covers sequencing a mixed route.

First Service After a Delivery

When a delivery truck drops units at a new site, that site joins the service route. Set the service frequency on the recurring service so it comes due on its own, and assign it to the service truck that owns that area on that day. Put the placement on the service job too, such as units behind the trailer near the north gate, so the service driver sees it on the card in the driver app and does not spend the first visit hunting for the units.

Weekends and Events

Event deliveries tend to cluster on Fridays and pickups on Mondays. If your delivery truck is busy every Friday with festival and wedding drops, plan service routes so they do not need that truck, and keep Monday morning clear for pickups. Routing Around Weekend Events: Fitting Porta Potty Deliveries Next to Weekly Service goes into planning around event weekends.

For how service and delivery routes come together on the Waiting List and dispatch board, see PortaPottyBossPro portable toilet route software.