Dispatch software checklist for corporate transport: an RFP you can send

Corporate transport is bought on a contract, and the software that runs it should be bought the same way: against written requirements, with every vendor answering the same questions. This is a dispatch software checklist for operators who run employee transport, corporate cabs and executive travel for company clients. It is arranged as eight groups of five requirements, forty in all, that you can copy into a request for proposal. At the end there is a simple way to score the replies.

How to use this checklist

Do not send it as it stands. Strike out what you do not need, mark each remaining line as must have or good to have, and add your own volumes: duties per day, vehicles, vendors, client companies and cities. Ask each vendor to answer every line with one of three words, yes, partly or no, and to explain every partly. A vendor who answers yes to all forty has not read it.

1. Bookings and the corporate portal

• Bookings from our own team, a client portal, a passenger app and our website arrive in one list.
• Client staff can book for themselves in a portal, with sign-in through the client's own identity provider.
• Approval rules can hold a booking by value, route or the requester's manager.
• Travel policies can be set per client company.
• Client employee lists can be loaded from a file or received from the client's HR system. State which HR products have ready-made connectors, if any.

2. Recurring duties and shifts

• A duty can repeat daily, weekly or monthly until an end date.
• One repeat in a series can be changed or cancelled without touching the rest.
• Multi-stop duties with intermediate pickups are supported.
• State whether shift rosters are built automatically or entered by us.
• State whether routes and pickup order are optimised automatically or set by us.

The last two lines are deliberately neutral. Automatic rostering and routing are large features that some products have and many, including MobilityDrive, do not: in MobilityDrive you set the duties and the pickup order, and recurring bookings repeat them. Ask the question plainly and you will get a plain answer.

3. Allotment and auto-allocation

• The system refuses or flags a vehicle or driver with an overlapping duty.
• The system refuses or flags a driver on leave or off duty.
• Automatic allocation assigns a vehicle and a driver together, never one without the other.
• Automatic allocation reports why a duty could not be allotted.
• A dispatcher can always allot or re-allot by hand, and the change is recorded with the user's name.

For the reasoning behind the third and fourth lines, read how auto-allocation of drivers and vehicles works.

4. Driver and vehicle compliance

• Vehicle documents (permit, fitness, insurance, pollution certificate, road tax) are stored with expiry dates and alerts.
• Driver documents (licence, police verification, badge or permit) are stored with expiry dates and alerts.
• An expired document blocks allotment, with any override limited by company policy and recorded.
• Vendor vehicles and drivers are held to the same checks as our own.
• Vehicle inspection checklists can be completed in the driver app.

5. Tracking and safety

• Active duties are shown on a live map. State where location comes from: the driver's phone, fitted devices or both.
• A tracking link can be sent to a passenger or the client's desk without an app install.
• A finished trip can be replayed on the map with its route, speed and stops.
• Geofence entry and exit at offices and airports is logged, with overspeed and harsh driving events.
• An SOS can be raised by the driver and by the passenger. State who is alerted and how.

6. Service levels and reporting

• Rules can require a duty to be allotted a set time before pickup and started by a set time after it.
• A missed rule raises a breach and notifies named staff.
• Overdue duties remain visible until they are closed.
• On-time performance, completed trips and cancellations can be reported per client.
• Reports can be emailed on a schedule.

Service levels are what a corporate client renews on. Our article on winning corporate transport contracts explains which three measures to agree in writing first, and ground transportation software explained sets out the wider category if dispatch is only part of what you are buying.

7. Duty slips and billing

• The driver records kilometres, times, tolls and parking on the phone, and the passenger or client confirms.
• Trips are priced from each client's contract, including packages and extras.
• A month of duties for one client can be raised on one tax invoice, on a schedule.
• Tax invoices meet our country's rules: GST with e-invoice IRN in India, VAT in Saudi Arabia or the UAE. State the status of each e-invoicing integration: live, tested in sandbox or planned.
• Credit notes, receipts including tax deducted at source, ageing and statements of account are supported, with an export to our accounting software.

8. Commercials, security and exit

• The price list states what is charged per month, per vehicle, per duty and for setup.
• Role-based permissions limit what each user can see and do.
• State which security certifications you hold. Do not accept the word compliant in place of a certificate.
• All our data can be exported in open formats at any time.
• State the notice period, and what happens to our data when the contract ends.

How to score the answers

Give two points for yes, one for partly and none for no, and double the points on your must-have lines. Then ignore the total for a moment and read the partly answers, because that is where products differ. Shortlist two vendors and make each one prove five of its yes answers live, on your data: an allotment that should be refused, a breach that should be raised, an invoice from a real duty slip. The article on how to choose fleet dispatch software explains how to run that demo.

How MobilityDrive answers

We answer no to automatic rostering and route optimisation, no to ready-made connectors for named HR products, and no to ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification, which we do not hold. On e-invoicing we answer partly outside India: ZATCA Phase 2 is tested in ZATCA's developer sandbox with live onboarding done per customer, and the UAE provider connector is awaiting sandbox confirmation. Most of the rest of the list we can show you working, and you should ask us to prove any line you care about. Start with the fleet dispatch software page, see employee transportation software for the corporate side, and operators in India can read employee transport management software in India.