truck drivers

Background

Fleeting's focus was improving quality of life for truck drivers. Stressors endemic to career truck drivers include: poor nutrition, missed moments with family, and deprioritized sleep. Fleeting's goal is to create a digital ecosystem that will improve how drivers plan for life on the road.

Goals

Truck drivers are paid to deliver freight from shippers to receivers. They commonly work for Third-Party Logistics Companies (3PLs) that own trucks and trailers. The goal for the first release of Fleeting for Drivers was to create a mobile app that acts as an intermediary between drivers and employers.

Phase One: MVP
Phase Two: Support for Job Offers
Phase Three: Support for Truck Reservations

Screenshots representing phases of the Fleeting for Drivers UI

Minimal Viable Product

Before building any product, Fleeting Inc. served its 3PL partners through its driver staffing program. Generating further support for 3PLs was a significant motivator in determining requirements for MVP.

Defining Requirements

To determine MVP features, we mapped offerings and requirements from Fleeting Inc, Drivers, and 3PL partners. Notable highlights included tracking hourly work for drivers, match making based on driver endorsements, and the ability to submit a pre-trip and post-trip inspection.

Wireframe Solution

Sketches of the "My Trips" and "Timesheet" UI

This sketch highlights a workflow for the Fleeting for Drivers mobile app. The features prioritized for this build were job posts for drivers and submitting timesheets.

Deploy & Test

Our first deployment created an edge-case for drivers whose shifts spanned across two different days. They encountered a scenario where they could not submit their hours past midnight on the day they started their shift. We then added the ability to edit the day a shift both started and ended.

Phase Two

The MVP UI worked well for local freight haulers. The app enabled the company to receive 10 completed timesheets (minimum) per day from January to December 2020. To bolster the business, Fleeting Inc. set out to add support for drivers accustomed to taking longer routes to earn income. This addition would add new actors and use cases to the product ecosystem.

Refining Goals

Drivers that drive for 3PLs represent the majority of truck drivers in the US. Through our interviews, we discovered that Owner Operators and Independent Truck Owners would also need to be represented in order to provide a valuable experience. We created three personas as a North Star in order to guide our thinking about features and new services.

Actors & Use Cases

The Actors and Use Cases exercise led by our project manager shed light on the workflows that would need to exist in the updated UI. We found that our feature set would need to be expanded to allow drivers to receive select offers from external load boards and upload their documents such as a Bill of Lading.

Phase II Deployment

Our Phase II release enabled Independent Truck Drivers, Owner Operators and 3PL Company Drivers to use the platform. There was also a need to create a workflow that would enable Truck Owners to list their trucks with Fleeting Inc. I've created a dedicated case study for this scenario that lives here.

Key Statistics

For additional validation, we analyzed the landscape of the trucking industry and came across some interesting statistics related to transporting commercial freight. One that stands out is the nearly three quarters of all freight American deliveries transported by truck. Put plainly, freight transporters are highly coveted, especially when they have flawless driving records.

Being a Class-A driver comes with plenty stressors. Weather, terrain, traffic, and scheduling delays can all make for a challenging day. Other common frustrations include no paid leave, lack of sleep, and inconsistencies in truck quality. We surveyed drivers across multiple carriers and found their most presssing frustrations about the trucking industry.