Profession guide
The truck dispatchglossary
The job came from the US market together with its vocabulary, and most of it is never translated. Here is the language you hear in every class and in every broker call, explained in plain words.
01Profession guides
Truck dispatch, dispatching, dispatcher — the same thing
People search for this job in a dozen ways: truck dispatch, truck dispatcher course, dispatch school, freight dispatcher. It is all one thing — a person anywhere in the world runs the commercial side of an American truck.
If you were looking for a truck dispatch school, you are in the right place: that is what this academy is.
Truck dispatch — running the truck's business: find the load, agree the rate, take the trip through to payment
Car hauling dispatch — the same job, but the freight is vehicles and the boards are Central Dispatch and Super Dispatch
General freight dispatch — general cargo on every other trailer type, on the DAT and Truckstop boards
Why the terms stay in English
A dispatcher works with American brokers in English: on the call and in the email it is a rate confirmation, never a translation of one. A translated term simply does not land with a broker, so the trade keeps the original.
Below is the vocabulary as it appears at work: first the job and the people in a trip, then the boards, then trailer types and paperwork.
This glossary describes the US market in general, not the syllabus of any one format. What is covered in class is on the format pages.
02Glossary
The job and the people in a trip
- Truck dispatch
- Running the commercial side of a truck on the US market: finding a load on a board, negotiating the rate, handling paperwork and seeing the trip through to payment. Remote work, from any country.
- Dispatcher
- The person who does that work. They neither drive the truck nor own the freight: their job is to keep the truck moving and every trip worth taking.
- Shipper
- The owner of the freight: a plant, a dealer, a warehouse, an auction or a private person. The trip starts with them — they have something to move.
- Broker
- The middleman between the freight owner and the carrier. Posts the load on a board with a rate and is responsible for paying the carrier. The broker is who the dispatcher negotiates with.
- Carrier
- The trucking company that physically runs the load. It owns the trucks, the insurance and the registration numbers. A dispatcher works on the carrier's side.
- Owner-operator
- A driver who owns his own truck. A frequent client for a dispatcher: he needs someone finding loads while he is behind the wheel.
- MC and DOT number
- A carrier's registration numbers with the US transport authority (FMCSA). They are how you check that a company is active and insured.
Load boards
- Load board
- The marketplace where brokers post available freight: from where, to where, what it is, which trailer it needs and what it pays. A dispatcher's main working tool.
- DAT
- The largest general freight board in the US. It is where you look for loads for dry vans, reefers, flatbeds and every other trailer type, check the going rate on a lane and vet brokers.
- Truckstop
- The second large general freight board, same principle and its own broker audience. Some loads only ever appear on one of the two, which is why dispatchers keep both.
- Central Dispatch
- The board of the car hauling market: vehicles that need moving between states are posted here. Same logic as DAT, except the freight is cars.
- Super Dispatch
- A car hauling platform: a board plus a trip management system with an electronic BOL and photo inspection of the vehicle at pickup and delivery.
Trucks and trailers
- Dry van
- The enclosed dry trailer — the most common one in the US. It carries anything that does not mind temperature: goods, packaging, pallets.
- Reefer
- A refrigerated trailer: the same enclosed box, but with a cooling unit and a set temperature. Food, drinks, pharmaceuticals.
- Flatbed
- An open deck with no sides and no roof. Building materials, pipe, machinery. The load is strapped and chained down and tarped when needed — that is the carrier's responsibility.
- Step deck (drop deck)
- A deck with a step: the rear sits lower than the front. Needed when the freight is taller than standard and will not clear on a regular flatbed.
- Conestoga
- A flatbed or step deck fitted with a rolling tarp system on a frame. The load stays out of the rain and dust, it can still be loaded from the side and the top, and nobody has to throw a tarp by hand. It pays better than a plain flatbed.
- Power only
- A tractor with no trailer of its own: the carrier picks up the customer's already loaded trailer and moves it. These loads show up on the same boards.
- Hotshot
- A pickup or medium-duty truck with a flatbed trailer. Urgent, smaller shipments that do not justify a full-size truck.
- Lowboy / RGN
- A low-deck trailer for heavy equipment and oversize loads. An RGN has a detachable front end so machinery can drive on by itself.
- Car hauler
- A truck built to move vehicles — open, for several cars at once, or enclosed for expensive and collectible ones. A separate market with its own boards and its own inspection rules.
Paperwork, rates and money
- Rate confirmation (rate con)
- The broker's document that locks in the deal: rate, addresses, dates, terms. Signed means the load is yours. Before the signature, a phone agreement counts for nothing.
- BOL (Bill of Lading)
- The shipping document issued at pickup, confirming that the carrier took the freight and in what condition. The central document of a trip.
- POD (Proof of Delivery)
- The BOL signed at delivery — proof the load arrived. A broker will not pay without it, so a dispatcher makes sure the driver sends it immediately.
- Rate per mile ($/mile)
- The rate divided by the miles of the trip. The basic measure of whether a load is worth it, and how offers get compared.
- Deadhead
- The empty miles to the pickup. The broker does not pay for them, so a long deadhead eats the trip's margin — a dispatcher counts it before making the call.
- Detention
- Money paid for a truck held beyond the free hours at pickup or delivery. The right to it comes from the rate confirmation, and collecting it is part of the dispatcher's job.
- Factoring
- Selling the invoice to a factoring company to get paid for the trip straight away instead of waiting for the broker's payment terms. The factor keeps a percentage.
03Questions on the topic
They are the same job described from different angles. Freight dispatch is the general term; car hauling dispatch is the branch where the freight is vehicles. The work — find the load, agree the rate, run the trip — is the same.
A Conestoga is the same deck with a rolling tarp system on a frame. The load is protected from the weather, it can still be loaded from the side and the top, and no one has to throw and secure a tarp by hand. For the carrier that is less work and a better rate; for the dispatcher it is a separate equipment type in the board's filters.
No. Practice runs on the academy's working accounts under the instructor's supervision — students need no subscriptions of their own. On them you search for loads for a specific truck, work out rates, call brokers and handle the paperwork.
Working the boards is the backbone of both our programmes. Car Hauling means Central Dispatch and Super Dispatch; General Freight means DAT and Truckstop with every trailer type, Conestoga included. Which format suits you is what the free consultation is for.
The words make sense.Now try the work itself
On a free consultation we look at your situation and tell you which direction and format to start with — no pressure, no promises.
Or take the 2-minute format picker →
Fixed price: €199–499, and every format except the online group can be paid in two instalments. Before you start — a free consultation, no pressure.