E-ticketing offers solutions to improve efficiency, safety

Connex, Command Alkon’s e-ticketing software, allows users to search by a date range, ticket number or project and find the associated delivery information within seconds. Photo: Command Alkon

So, what does e-ticketing’s future look like?

In short: It’s growing. That’s something Bowman, Holycross, Lai and Rasmussen agree on.

From an operational standpoint, Holycross believes organizations such as the Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO) will eventually formalize initiatives to bring e-ticketing to the industry, accelerating the adoption rate across aggregate sites.

“AASHTO has a group effort – it involves vendors, DOT agencies [and] Federal Highway Administration employees – so it’s really a joint effort to get all the information you could possibly want in e-ticketing, vet it across the industry and put together a draft specification that all states can refer to in the future,” Holycross says. “Definitely, there’s going to be more of this coming.”

One e-ticketing area Lai expects to grow is the automation and integration of all systems so site managers know what a truck is there for – without even speaking to the driver first.

“When the truck does show up, then we just know who they are,” Lai says. “And we know what they want. They don’t need to talk to anyone. We just show up in front of the right place, and the loader knows exactly what the truck wants because that’s always on the screen. I think that’s really exciting.”

Education is a key to reaching additional producers with the technology. A number of producers still utilize legacy computer systems, Bowman says, so the first step to modernize operations is updating the software businesses use.

“Not until that time will we see a pervasive migration or exodus to a true e-ticketing solution across the board,” Bowman says.

Ultimately, the fundamental goal of e-ticketing and its components is to simplify processes for aggregate producers, delivery drivers and dispatchers to reduce costs while increasing safety and efficiencies on-site.

“The ticket’s the easy piece,” Rasmussen says. “That’s the easiest part of the equation. It’s everything else that goes on in this industry where the efficiencies can be gained.”

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