Create advanced plans with Trip Operation Planning
You can plan multiple trips in a row for a single freight bill or trailer in Trip Operation Planning. These trips are all connected with a shared Operational Plan ID (Op Plan ID). This lets you:
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Plan the entire lifecycle of a freight bill from start to finish.
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Plan multiple trailer trips in a row with different bills.
A freight bill’s complete lifecycle
If a trip’s focus is on freight bills, you can plan a freight bill’s whole journey in Trip Operation Planning.
For example, if you have exclusive freight you can prepare each leg of its trip in order before it starts. Another use is if you break up your intermodal trips into individual movements rather than doing a full loaded-empty movement.
Here is an example freight bill that needs to go from Vancouver, BC to Montreal, QC:
Based on this freight bill’s terminal plan, these movements are expected:
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A pickup move to bring the bill from its pickup location in Vancouver to the BC terminal.
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An intermediate move to bring the bill from the BC terminal to the MB terminal.
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An intermediate move to bring the bill from the MB terminal to the QC terminal.
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A delivery move to bring the bill from the QC terminal to its delivery location in Montreal.
This freight bill is exclusive, so no other bills will be added during its journey. It will be a solo bill on each leg.
Because of this, you can use the Trip Operation Planning tool to plan this trip from start to finish. Here is an example plan in Trip Operation Planning:
After this plan is executed, all the trips are created and then linked together with a shared Op Plan ID:
Pre-planning the trips this way means future trips cannot be started until the one before it has been completed. This makes sure the trips process in order without the need to create the next trip manually as each leg completes.
Multiple trailer movements
You can also use Trip Operation Planning from a resource perspective. You can link together trips that have the same resource but different bills. This lets you track that resource as it moves.
Here is an example of a resource-focused plan:
After this plan is executed, all the trips are created and then linked together with a shared Op Plan ID:
This workflow prevents future loads from being dispatched until they have arrived at their next valid location.
You can see planned legs using the scheduler view in Dispatch and Multi Mode Dispatch.
