Employee transport
How to run an employee transport roster without spreadsheets
How staff transport contractors roster daily shuttle routes, create runs ahead, cover driver leave and holidays, and bill clients from completed runs.
By The Odobase team
Published
Updated
2 min read
The short answer
Run employee transport as standing routes rather than daily bookings: define each route once with its weekdays, time, driver and vehicle, create the daily runs a couple of weeks ahead, manage leave and holidays on a weekly roster, and invoice each client company from the runs actually completed.
Employee transport (staff shuttles, called pick-and-drop in some markets) is one of the most predictable kinds of fleet work, and one of the easiest to get wrong. The same routes run every working day, but drivers take leave, holidays interrupt the pattern, and clients add and drop routes. A spreadsheet can hold the plan; it cannot stop two routes being given the same van.
Why does staff transport outgrow spreadsheets?
- Every day is a copy. A route that runs five days a week becomes hundreds of rows a year, and a change means editing all of the future ones.
- Clashes are invisible. Nothing stops the same driver being written into two routes at 8:00.
- Billing is reconstructed. At month end someone counts which days actually ran.
Download a free planning spreadsheet
If you are not ready for software, our free passenger transport planning spreadsheet for Excel follows these steps. List each route once with its weekdays, times, usual driver and vehicle, and contract dates. A check column flags a driver or vehicle booked on two routes at overlapping times. The week planner shows who drives each run, and a sheet of day changes swaps a driver for one day without touching the route. It is also available in Spanish, French, Italian and Arabic.
Step 1: Define each route once
Treat a route as a standing duty: where it starts and ends, the weekdays it runs, the start time, the default driver and vehicle, and the contract dates. Everything else follows from that definition. School runs work the same way, with term dates in place of contract dates; see how Odobase fits school transport.
Step 2: Create the daily runs ahead of time
Generate each day’s run as a real booking a couple of weeks ahead. Real bookings block the driver and vehicle, so other work cannot be assigned on top of them, and drivers can see what is coming.
Step 3: Manage change on a weekly roster
Lay out every route against the days of the week. When a driver is on leave, reassign that day. When routes are reshuffled, reassign that day and every one after it, skipping any days where the new driver is already busy, and deal with those dates one by one.
Step 4: Handle holidays and breaks deliberately
Skip public holidays and pause a route while a client’s office is closed. Cancelled days should stay cancelled; they must not reappear the next time the plan is extended.
Step 5: Bill from what actually ran
At month end, invoice each client company from its completed runs. The plan said 22 days; the invoice should say how many were actually driven.
Doing this in Odobase
Recurring trips and the roster, switched on in every new Odobase account, follow exactly these steps: set up a route once, let Odobase create the daily trips 7 to 60 days ahead, reassign from the roster, skip and pause, and invoice each client from completed trips. See how it fits employee transport providers and other passenger transport companies.
Topics
- Employee transport
- Rostering
- Operations
Frequently asked questions
How far ahead should daily runs be planned?
Two weeks is a practical default. It is far enough to spot clashes and plan leave, and short enough that route changes do not mean rewriting a month of bookings.
What should happen to past runs when a route changes?
Nothing. Change only future runs that have not started. Completed runs are the record you invoice from, so they should never be rewritten.
Can drivers see their roster on their phone?
They should. When each day’s run is a real booking assigned to a driver, a driver app can show every run coming up, and a change made on the roster reaches the driver without a phone call.
What should rostering software for staff transport do?
Create each day’s runs from a standing route, refuse a driver or vehicle booked on two runs at once, let you reassign one day or the rest of the series, skip holidays, and invoice each client from the runs that actually happened.
How do you bill a client for staff transport?
Invoice from the runs that were actually completed in the period, not from the plan. That way cancelled days and holidays are never billed by mistake.
