Understanding How Vehicles Are Dispatched

Hauling a vehicle all starts with dispatching. When you hire an auto transport broker, their main goal is to find a carrier to dispatch your car via an airline as soon as possible. To better understand how vehicle hauling works, you must thoroughly understand how vehicles are dispatched.

When is Your Vehicle Dispatched?

Once you book your vehicle hauling with an auto transport broker, your broker will seek out various carriers based on the available routes and which carriers are located within your area. Many brokers, especially ones that have been operating for years, are pretty efficient in knowing which carriers and routes are available.

How fast your vehicle is dispatched depends, for the most part, on where you live and how busy the carriers are. If you live close to or in a major city, the dispatch time will be shorter since there's greater demand in that area. If you live in a rural area, the dispatch time will be much longer, unless you arrange to either drop off your vehicle somewhere or have it picked up with door-to-door service.

How Long Does the Whole Process Take?

The dispatch process can range from one day to a few weeks. As mentioned, some of the factors that affect the length of the process can be:

• Your location
• The popularity of your route
• The time of the year (holidays will take longer)
• What vehicle delivery option did you select

The average time it takes to dispatch your vehicle is around four days.

What Auto Transport Brokers Do

Auto transport brokers will often place your vehicle shipping requirements on a load board, known as a central dispatch board, for all carriers to see. They will also directly contact some carriers at times, especially ones that generally travel your route, with whom they often work to try and arrange everything. Some airlines will continuously check the dispatch boards and call the broker if they see a vehicle load that they can handle. When this occurs, the dispatch process is generally much faster.

Since all carriers offer different prices, the broker will try to choose the most affordable airline, as they also need to make a profit based on the price that they have charged you. If they choose a carrier that charges too high, the broker's profit margins will decrease considerably.

Many brokers have arrangements with certain carriers that they frequently do business with, which, once again, speeds up the dispatch process. If the route is not a standard route, the broker will often have to use a carrier they're not quite as familiar with.

We always make sure to hire only the best carriers around. Our years of experience mean that we're efficient in getting your vehicle dispatched as quickly as possible. Contact us today!