Tractor Utilization Chart (Carrier)

This screen presents resource assignments (that is, equipment) in a Gantt chart format.

Standard list filtering will establish which domicile vehicle sequences are displayed. Individual sequences for a carrier / domicile / equipment type / vehicle combination are presented in the list portion of the screen (that is, on the left hand side). Once domicile vehicle sequences have been selected, the chart on the right hand side of the page will be loaded with resource assignments that partially or fully overlap the applicable date horizon.

This page will only present information associated with equipment types where the equipment category is "tractor" or "tractor/trailer".

Note: For each row on the chart, user can view resource commitments for the current date horizon in a conventional list format by clicking on the Vehicle ID hyperlink for the row in the list portion of the screen.

List

The list is presented on the left hand side of the context portion of the screen. By default, the list will present domicile vehicle sequences sorted in ascending order by Domicile ID, then in ascending order by Equipment Type, then in ascending order by Vehicle ID and finally in ascending order by Vehicle Sequence Number. Search and Customize View functionalities are available via the appropriate icons above the list on the left hand side of the page. "Saved Search" functionality is available for this list from the Search for Resources - Tractors page and also by using the combo box of "Saved Searches" in the Search Results header on the Tractor Utilization chart screen.

There are two Customize View icons on this page. The icon in the list header on the left hand side of the page is used to control list presentation (that is, column selection, column sequencing, page control, sorting control).

There are also two sets of Previous/Next functions (Left/Right Arrows, text box and Jump button) at the bottom of the screen. The controls under the list portion of the screen control paging for domicile vehicle sequences. These behave in a manner consistent with Previous/Next/Jump functionality on other list pages in Transportation Manager.

Column sorting on the list (using ) is not support for the list portion of this screen.

Chart

When the chart is accessed directly via the navigation pad, the benchmark date will be the current date. For each user, the default date horizon can be offset from the benchmark date by a fixed number of days (forward or backward), or the page can be configured to always start on the most recent occurrence of a given day of the week (for example, previous Monday if benchmark date is not a Monday, else benchmark date today if benchmark date is a Monday).

"Chart Customization (All)"can also be used to control the number of days that are displayed at a time (for example, 1 day, 7 days) and the duration of each vertical time bar (for example, 1 hour, 4 hours, 12 hours).

There are two Customize View icons on this page. The icon near the top right hand corner of the screen is used to control chart presentation.

The start time for the first (and possibly only) day that is presented on the chart is always 00:00 (midnight).

There are also two sets of Previous/Next functions (Left/Right Arrows, text box and Jump button) at the bottom of the screen. The controls under the chart portion of the screen will allow you to shift the current date horizon forward or backward:

• The Previous button will shift the current date horizon back by the number of days currently presented on the page. For example, if the screen is currently presenting seven days starting with Monday April 13th and ending with Sunday April 19th, the Previous button will adjust the date horizon for the page such that commitments are instead presented for the week starting on Monday April 6th and ending Sunday April 12th.
• The Next button will shift the current date horizon forward by the number of days currently presented on the page. For example, if the screen is currently presenting seven days starting with Monday April 13th and ending with Sunday April 19th, the Next button will adjust the date horizon for the page such that commitments are instead presented for the week starting on Monday April 20th and ending Sunday April 26th.
• The Jump field allows the start date of the horizon to be set to a specific date. This date must be entered in the date format associated with the user. As always, start time will be 00:00 (midnight). The Date Picker can be used to identify the appropriate date.

Each row represents one domicile vehicle sequence (that is, unique sequence number for a carrier / domicile / equipment type / vehicle combination).

Each Tractor Utilization for a load or trip is represented by a colored bar. The colors used have the following meanings:

• Green Bar - No know problems with the resource utilization.
• Yellow Bar - Scheduling results are not currently valid for the applicable load or trip, suggesting that a potential problem exist. Applicable only for load or trips where scheduling is active.
• Red Bar - Start and Return Date/Time for the resource utilization for this load/trip overlap with the date/time for at least one other load/trip that is scheduled to use the same resource.
• Gray Bar - Resource is being utilized by another division. Limited information is available for these equipment assignments. Operations are not supported.
• A thin Red Line indicates that the applicable domicile is closed. Freight can move even when the domicile where equipment is based is closed.
• A bar is displayed with asterisks (*) when the chart is accessed from the context of a specific load or trip. This bar could be in red, yellow or green and will highlight the load or trip that the user was working with when they navigated to the chart.

Information regarding a Resource Commitment (for example, Load ID, Trip ID, Start Date/Time, End Date/Time) can be displayed by moving the mouse to hover over the bar representing this commitment.

To execute an option for a specific resource commitment, you must first select the resource commitment by clicking on the bar representing the load or trip. Once a bar has been selected, the box is displayed in bold. Multiple bars can be selected by holding down the Ctrl button and clicking several bars in succession.

Bars on the chart represent the planned duration of the resource utilization. When a load or trip's routing/rating/scheduling (RR&S) results are invalidated, dates/time associated with the resource utilization may or may not be valid. When a load or trip's actual start or end date/time is changed, it may or may not impact other loads/trips using the same resource after it. Until RR&S is re-performed for the subsequent loads/trips, the resource data for those loads/trips may or may not be valid.

Vehicle ID can represent a single physical asset or a pool of vehicles. Unique identifiers will be established for each row by concatenating Vehicle ID with a sequence number. For example, if Vehicle ID is XYZ, Vehicle IDs on the chart will be XYZ-1, XYZ-2, XYZ-3, etc.

Utilization for a domicile / equipment type / vehicle combination can be overcommitted. This could occur during optimization if the penalty cost associated with over-commitment is less than costs associated with other solutions. It could also occur when user manually elects to use a domicile based carrier for a load or trip. A separate row is can be presented on the chart representing "overflow".

Start and Return Dates/Times are presented in the time zone of the domicile where the equipment is based. When multiple domiciles are selected and they are in different time zones, a warning message is presented above the page alerting users that dates times on the page are not presented in normalized time zone context.

Tasks

Tasks (when equipment category is "tractor" or "tractor/trailer"

See Also