Glossary of terms

Refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_the_American_trucking_industry for a list of trucking terms.

The following terms are defined with respect to how they are used within TruckMate.

3rd Party Logistics

3rd Party Logistics

Ad-hoc (loading)

Loading un-manifested freight onto trailers.

Advance Time

The time it takes, in days, for the Interliner to travel to the terminal.

Application

Generally refers to the entire TruckMate set of modules and programs as a whole. Sometimes used interchangeably with the term program.

ART Server

Service that co-ordinates the ConnectedDock application, processes freight movement commands, and moves data between TruckMate and the handheld device.

Batch loading

Loading multiple freight bills at once.

Bay

Area directly in front of a terminal door where freight is staged just before loading.

Beyond Time

The time it takes, in days, for the Interliner to travel from the terminal.

Break Bulk Terminal

A terminal used by large common carriers, designed to act as an intermediate sorting point for interregional freight. Freight from various end-of-line terminals is sent to a regional break bulk terminal to be combined into full trailers that the carrier then routes to subsequent end-of-line terminals.

Carrier

A transporter of goods from one destination to another. All commercial transport businesses can be considered carriers.

COD

COD in the TruckMate system refers specifically to Cash On Delivery charges for product carried. This is meant as a way to track cash received by the driver from the consignee for product delivered so that it can be paid to the shipper.

Commodity

A product that is bought and sold. Within TruckMate it is the product being transported and may have certain characteristics defined such as temperature controlled or dangerous goods.

Commodity class

A code that represents a collection of related commodity types.

Consignee

A customer code that represents the load destination or party to whom freight is being shipped.

Container

Reusable metal box that can be detached from the chassis for loading into a vessel or a rail car or stacked at a depot.

Crossdock

Transfer of freight items from inbound to outbound shipments with no long-term storage in-between shipments.

Courier cage

Mini-container that courier freight is loaded into prior to being loaded onto a trailer.

Customer

A code and related record that represents a business you provide services to. Customer Codes are defined in Customer / Vendor Profiles.

Dock location

Area on the terminal floor where freight is staged or temporarily stored.

Door

Terminal opening where the trailer is parked for loading and/or unloading.

Drop-down menu

Menu of options that appears when you tap a field on a screen. Options remain hidden until being selected (tapped).

EDI

(Electronic Data Interchange) Computer-to-computer data transfer between companies for the purpose of generating purchase orders and invoices.

Filter

  • A program control to help locate a specific code.

  • A part of the program used to limit the records displayed to those that match the criteria you select or specify.

Freight

Goods transported on a trip.

Freight bill

Document issued by the carrier providing shipment details (e.g., shipper, consignee or item details). A freight bill may contain one item; multiple items; or, in the case of skeleton manifests, no items.

Geocode

Location latitude/longitude co-ordinates

Handheld (device)

Any of the supported Android devices.

Item

Lowest unit of trackable freight based on how barcodes are applied (e.g., one pallet consisting of several boxes/items may be shrink-wrapped together and have one barcode representing it as a whole).

Interliner

An outstide Carrier. When a carrier contracts to a second carrier to move a load on their behalf, the secondary carrier is considered an Interliner. This can be for the complete trip or portions of it including Advance, Bridge and Beyond legs.

Junction Terminal

A Junction Terminal is a facility where trailered loads are exchanged between trucks and/or separate carriers.

Leg

  • A leg is one segment of an operations trip. A trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles may be represented as a multi-leg trip with leg 1 as Vancouver to Seattle, leg 2 as Seattle to Fresno, and leg 3 as Fresno to L.A. The LEGSUM table stores a summary record for each leg of every trip.

  • A leg is one segment of a fuel tax trip specific to a fuel tax jurisdiction.

Load

Put freight items onto a trailer.

LTL

Less than Truck Load

Manifest

List of all freight items being moved on a trip.

Onscreen keyboard

QWERTY keyboard that displays on the screen, allowing you to enter uppercase and lowercase characters, numbers and special characters.

OSD

(Overage/Shortage/Damage) Freight that is either in excess of (overage) or less than (shortage) that identified on the freight bill, or freight that arrived damaged.

Poll Zone

A Poll Zone indicates the position of the mobile device, (usually) reported in latitude / longitude co-ordinates to the mobile communications network and converted to a TruckMate zone by the Mobile Communications Manager.

Power unit

Piece of equipment containing an engine that can move trailers.

Probill

An interline vendor bill in the operations and billing system. The probill is converted to an AP invoice by the Interline Payables Register program.

Rate sheet

A rate sheet is a single record which holds a collection of factors used to calculate charges on a Freight Bill load detail.

Rating zone

The auto-rating system has the ability to calculate charges on freight bill details based on rates set on a zone to zone basis (also known as point to point rating). The concept of a rating zone exists to allow you the ability to have the auto-rating system rate one zone as another. Example: Oakland, CA is assigned a rating zone of San Francisco, CA. Any bills with a pick-up zone of Oakland will now be rated as if they were picked up in San Francisco.

Scanner

See Handheld (device)

Schema

  • The collection of database objects that make up the structure of your database. Tables, records, fields, triggers, and indexes are all part of the database schema.

  • In database systems that support multiple schemas, a schema is security controlled collection of database objects that are accessible by a specific user or group of users.

Service level

A service level is a code assigned to each freight bill in TruckMate that links the bill to a number of factors that can affect how the bill is to be rated, how delivery times are calculated, and how the bill is to be processed by your operations. Service level codes are defined in the Codes Maintenance program.

Service level matrix

The service level matrix is the set of factors used to calculate the time commitment required for you to move a customer’s load from point A to point B, including Advance and Beyond trips.

Shipper

A customer code that represents the load origin and the party responsible for moving the freight.

SQL

Structured Query Language

Status

  • A specific mode or event that a record or object is in. "The driver pay record is in an Approved status."

  • A status code represents a specific mode or event in operations or billing. "The dispatcher applied a DISP status code to a trip." Status codes are defined in the Codes Maintenance program.

Tap

Touch an item on the screen with your finger and then lift your finger.

Tap and hold

Touch the screen for a second or two before lifting your finger.

Terminal

Area designated for processing freight.

Terminal Zone

Designating a zone code as a terminal indicates this zone is specific to a terminal. This allows TruckMate to differentiate between freight being picked up or delivered to an area versus freight being picked up or delivered to a terminal that services an area.

Trailer

Platform or box with wheels that is pulled behind a power unit and used to transport freight.

Trip

Planned movement of freight from departure point to destination point. A trip may have equipment assigned to it and be assigned to a door.

  • A trip is a single record which holds operations and dispatch information unique to the trip overall. For example: each trip has a number, starting zone, ending zone, current status / zone / ETA, and currently active leg.

  • A trip is a single record that holds fuel tax information unique to a trip overall. A fuel tax trip has a unique trip number (seperate from the operations trip number), a start and end date, and starting and ending odometer values.

Trip resource

A trip resource is one or more of the following elements that can be attached to an operations trip: Freight Bill, Driver, Power Unit, Trailer, Chassis, Container, Miscellaneous Equipment, and/or(interline vendor) Carrier.

Trips

Trips represent the movement of freight and/or equipment. Trips can be organized into multiple legs with each leg representing a stop on a trip.

Zone

A zone code is a single record that can represent a specific geographical point or it can represent a specific geographical area that includes multiple zones.