Dispo for dispatchers – planning chains

✅ Before you can dispatch for your VTC, two things must be in place:

1. Your yard is finished: the notary appointment is over, the land belongs to your VTC, and the first paving – the building block "Access & yard area" – is built. How it works: Yard and parking spaces.
2. You hold the right: you are the owner or hold the "Dispatch orders" right in your VTC (see Roles and rights).

If one of them is missing, you can look at everything and even plan – but "Send out" then answers "Not sent out". More in the FAQ.

How to dispatch – step by step#

1. Open the dispatch centre – via "Dispatch centre" in the menu of the login area. At the top you see at once how many orders are open, how many legs are on the road and how many drivers are free.
2. Dispatch board › Pool: orders are grouped by route. The colour band shows the deadline – green, amber, red.
3. Put an order on a lane: every driver has a lane. Drag the order (or part of it) onto the lane – or tap it and then "Plan onto lane …". It is now in the draft; nobody has seen it yet.
4. Check: the load plan shows what is on the trailer. If something does not fit, it says so there.
5. "Send out" – only now does the plan go out. "Discard draft" starts over.
6. The driver takes it: in the login area under "My jobs" › "Dispatch jobs (dispatched)" the leg is in the tab "For you" – the app announces new legs in the overlay. They tap "Take tour"; then it stands under "My jobs" for them. If they "Decline" a leg planned for their own truck, you plan it again. Public legs are in the tab "Public" for everyone.
7. Follow it: board, map and ticker show where the goods are – up to the closing card.

1. Reading the pool#

The pool starts empty and then fills up bit by bit – like in real life. Every order card shows:

• Goods, tonnes, from – to (company and city)
• Why the customer needs them, e.g. "Supermarket Lyon: 6 t of apples from the Duisburg warehouse for the shelves."
• sometimes a delivery wish such as "Delivery Mon–Fri please" – just a hint, never a penalty
• the deadline with a colour band: green plenty of time · amber getting tight · red too tight – red orders can no longer be planned

"Expiring soon (n)" and the sort "expiring first" find the amber and red ones at once. If you plan an amber order, there is a rush bonus – the amount is on the card and in the release dialog. In the pool such a rush order carries the red "Rush surcharge" mark with its surcharge on its card. The driver then sees the leg as a rush order.

2. Planning a chain#

1. Open an order in the pool.
2. Put the legs on the driver's lane – which truck he drives does not matter (see One lane per driver). If the goods are in a warehouse, at a port or an airport, the next leg continues from there – see Planning via port or airport.
3. For overseas you choose the way across the Atlantic: ship or flight – see Ships and planes.
4. Release. The dialog always shows what legs not driven would cost in total.

What may you plan? You only dispatch where you could drive yourself:

• Only cities of your DLCs: you cannot dispatch to a city whose map DLC you do not own yourself. The release then tells you exactly which leg and which DLC: “Leg …: you do not own the DLC “…” – so you cannot dispatch to ….” Plan such legs for drivers who own the DLC – a driver without it does not see the leg and cannot take it.
• Other map only with that map: you can only dispatch to a city or a company that exists only on a map other than the base map if the app has detected that map on your side. For cities of an extension of that map you also need that extension.
• America only with ATS: you can only plan legs in America if you own ATS – legs in Europe only if you own ETS2. Otherwise the release tells you: “Leg …: you do not own … – so you cannot dispatch this leg.”
• Legs to America: in America, too, you only dispatch to cities of your DLCs – for that your ATS DLCs must be reported. Open the app once while ATS is installed on the PC and start ATS. Until then you can only dispatch to cities of the base game in America, by ship and by plane as well.
• Report once: the app detects what you own by itself – open it once on the PC where the game is installed and start the game. Until then you can only dispatch on the base map. A game counts as yours as soon as the app has reported DLCs of that game or you have driven at least one tour there – so if you own ATS without any DLC, drive one tour from the ATS freight market.
• Your drivers only take what they can drive: a driver only sees and takes legs that match his DLCs, his map and his games. So plan for drivers who can actually drive the route.

Planning tips:

• Click a planned leg and the board suggests matching pool orders starting close to where the leg ends – facts only: kilometres, goods, tonnes, deadline.
• If two or more legs of one driver join up without empty kilometres, you earn the "Perfect chain" badge – honour only, whichever truck he drives (see Return load and shuttle chain).
• In the same city: it can happen that a leg goes from one company to another company in the same city – it then shows as e.g. "Cologne: A → B".
• Double trailers work when both ends have a long parking space. In ETS2 only in Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden; in ATS everywhere with a simple double.

3. Not too much at once#

So that nothing is left lying, the Dispo helps you:

• The bigger your VTC, the more you may dispatch at the same time. Once the limit is reached, the release tells you clearly.
• The board header always shows "open: n".
• If your VTC already has open legs, every further release asks: "Attention: there are still … jobs open … Are you sure you want to keep dispatching?"
• An amber "dispatched too much" box warns you before you take on too much. You may still release – it is your choice.
• The tile "Legs at risk (n)" shows owner and dispatchers where it gets tight.
• The owner gets a postbox message listing the legs at risk.

4. Contract penalty#

If a dispatched leg is not delivered by its deadline, your VTC pays a contract penalty from the company account.

• The board shows a countdown for every leg. When it gets tight, the line turns amber.
• Handing back in good time is free – the leg returns to the pool.
• Handing back or cancelling too late costs the contract penalty. The app asks first.
• Every penalty comes as a message to the owner, the releasing dispatcher and the driver – with leg, deadline, reason and amount.

5. Making a leg public#

You can make a leg public. Single drivers and drivers of other VTCs then see it and can drive it. The loaded kilometres are paid; the approach is shown as information only.

If someone takes a public leg and does not deliver it (or hands it back too late), your VTC pays the contract penalty – and the taker has to compensate your VTC. Both see the penalty line beforehand. If the leg was driven, you get the message "Public leg driven by …"; the pay goes to the driver.

6. Warehouses and storage fees#

Goods waiting in a terminal, port or airport store for the next leg get a few free days. After that a storage fee is taken from the company account – every charge comes as a postbox message (store, tonnes, days, amount). Your own goods lie free in your VTC's own store. You build your own store under "My warehouse"; private or public is chosen when you build it – it cannot be changed later.

7. Looking back#

• Every shipment shows its chain: "Leg 2 of 5 · then … takes over" and at the end a completion card with the whole route, all drivers and tonnes. Drivers of other VTCs only appear as "a driver".
• The weekly balance is for your eyes only: chains driven, legs, tonnes, kilometres, empty kilometres, punctuality and the best dispatcher of the week.
• Whoever delivers reliably wins regular customers – who then send you orders of their own.

8. The load plan#

While planning, every leg in the draft has the button "Load plan". It opens right below the leg and shows the trailer with its pallet grid – one colour per order –, for every section between two stops the tonnes and pallets on board, and the true load that is loaded in the game. If something does not fit any more, it says so: "+… pallets do not fit any more".

The load plan only shows – the decision is made at "Send out". If the release is refused because it is too full or too heavy, exactly that section turns red.

9. Road lines#

When goods keep flowing between the same two hubs, a road line grows out of it over time – each direction on its own and kept apart per map. A line has fixed departures by day ☀ and by night ☾, in the local time of the starting hub (in America your own time is shown next to it). For every departure the goods waiting there are bundled as groupage into a normal Dispo leg. If too little is waiting, the departure is skipped. If a line is hardly needed any more for a while, it lapses again.

On the Dispo board the tab "Lines" shows every line as a tile: from – to, the departures, "Waiting at the hub: … t", how many VTCs are on the waiting list and whether it is "Free".

• "Take over line": whoever may dispatch in your VTC takes over a free line for a duration you pick right in the tile. Its departures are then offered to your VTC first. A line only ever has one VTC.
• "Request takeover": if the line is already taken, your VTC joins the waiting list. When it becomes free, the VTC that has waited longest comes first.
• Only lines you could dispatch: you can only take over or request a line if you could also dispatch to all of its cities – the same rules for DLCs, map and game apply as above under "What may you plan?". Otherwise the takeover is refused and tells you what is missing.
• Your own line shows "Extend" and "Release".
• If your VTC does not take a departure in time, it goes to everyone. If that happens several times in a row, your takeover ends – you get a message about it.
• How many lines one VTC can hold at the same time is limited; once you reach the limit, the tile tells you.

10. Empties#

With every Dispo delivery the customers collect empties – empty pallets or empty barrels, as in the game. Once enough has gathered at a company, a real return order appears in the pool at night: the empties to the nearest dealer warehouse. It does not expire. If the pool is full just then, the empties simply wait and come later – nothing gets lost. In the game the empty pallets are then really loaded.

11. The team: handover, daily report, messages#

The tab "Team" on the Dispo board has three sections:

• Handover: notes between the dispatchers of your VTC – what the next shift needs to know, with an order reference if you like. Everyone who may view the dispatch can read them; whoever may dispatch writes them and ticks them "Done"; only the author or the owner deletes. Plain text only. What is new since your last visit is marked. Old notes clear themselves away after a while.
• Daily report: every morning the previous day of your VTC, Europe (ETS2) and America (ATS) apart – legs delivered (on time and late), empty kilometres, goods into and out of the warehouse, Ø handling, empties, line runs and overseas. Only your own figures: no ranking, no comparison, no money. Older days are chosen at the top. With the switch "Daily report for our VTC" owners and dispatchers turn it off and on again for your VTC.
• Messages: for every leg on your lanes a short thread with the driver; ✉ on the lane and "Open dispatch messages – … new" show what is unread. There are quick phrases and a short text field. Writing works only once a driver has accepted the leg – for a public leg also with a driver of another VTC. "✓ read" shows that the other side has seen your message. The driver always sees just "Dispatch" as the sender.

12. One lane per driver#

On the Dispo board every driver of your VTC has exactly one lane – the owner and sub-drivers included, even someone without a truck right now.

• Which truck does not matter: own bought truck, rental truck or VTC truck – the lane stays the same. What the driver is driving right now is shown as info on the lane.
• A leg belongs to the driver, not to the truck. If he changes trucks, his leg stays with him.
• A leg for all drivers of your VTC goes onto the target 🏢 Whole VTC (see The Profi board). After sending out it is listed under "No fixed driver" – whoever takes it first drives.

13. Planning via port or airport#

A chain across the Atlantic is made of legs in two games: the road part in Europe is driven in ETS2, the one in America in ATS. In between, the ship sails or the plane flies.

• Every driver only drives his part. Someone with only ETS2 or only ATS drives to the port or airport – after that another driver takes over in the other game.
• Every leg shows how it runs: ETS2 or ATS on the road, ship or flight in between. If a road leg ends at a port or airport, it says e.g. "Drives to the port of Los Angeles – after that ship, then another driver carries on in ETS2."
• Each driver's lane shows "Has driven: …" – the games he has already driven in. If you put a leg in a game he has never driven onto his lane, you get a hint, e.g. "has never driven ATS". You may still plan it – it is only information.
• Drivers who take the leg publicly also see beforehand how far they drive.
• On the board: goods waiting at a port or airport for departure show as a grey line "🚢 … t waiting in the port … for the ship – it loads by itself, nothing to do." (with ✈️ for air freight). Goods still under way show as a card "Arrives …" with "Can be planned now". More: What the board shows.

How the goods cross the sea: Ships and planes.

14. The Profi board: drag or "Put here"#

On the Profi board you put orders where they belong with the mouse or your finger – or without dragging at all.

• Drag: grab an order and drop it on a driver or a target. On a phone, hold the order briefly until it lifts, then drag it.
• Tap: tap an order and every driver and every target shows "Put here". If it does not fit somewhere, the button is grey and tells you in words why – e.g. "trailer is full".
• The targets above the board: 🏢 Whole VTC – every driver of your VTC can take the leg · 🌍 Public – solo drivers and drivers of other VTCs can drive it too · ↩ Back to the pool appears while you drag a leg out of the draft.
• Undo: after every drop, removal or change "↶ Undo" appears – on a computer Ctrl+Z works too. You can also go back several steps.
• The chain on the map: tap an order or move the mouse over it and the map draws the whole way – also via port, ship or flight.
• On a phone: at the bottom, above the navigation, there is a bar with "Drivers" and "🗺 Map". Tap an order and it opens: first 🏢 and 🌍, then every driver with picture and name – "Put here" everywhere. The map slides up from the bottom as a sheet.
• Nothing goes out before you tap "Send out". Until then everything is only in the draft.

15. Unloading and loading at one stop#

If a driver unloads at a company and takes the next goods at the same company right away, that is one single stop: unload first, then load. There is no empty run in between.

• On the collection tour and on the Profi board such a stop counts once – also in the number of stops.
• The other way round does not work: load first and then unload at the same company.
• What counts is what is on board: the collection tour works out after every stop how many tonnes and pallets are on the trailer right now. If goods are unloaded on the way, there is room again afterwards. A tour is only too heavy if too much would be on board at the same time – not because all loads together weigh a lot. The line "then on board: … t" shows it at every stop.
• "Best order" finds such stops by itself.
• Bulk goods travel alone: gravel, sand or silo cement never share a leg with other goods – not before and not after either.

16. Co-load: take part of an order along#

If there is still room on the trailer, the board suggests goods along the way under "Co-load on the route".

• If an order does not fit completely, part of it is suggested – as much as is still free in tonnes and pallets. The rest stays in the pool for another driver.
• An order that fits completely is never split.
• Unload near the goal: if the receiver of the co-load is near the goal of the tour, the driver unloads it there – even a large amount.

17. Return load and shuttle chain#

A driver does not have to drive back empty. If you add a second leg on his lane that loads at the goal of the first, he drives a shuttle chain – e.g. Cologne → Hamburg, from Hamburg with other goods to Düsseldorf and on from there.

• Click the planned leg and the board suggests matching orders that start near the end of the leg – including ones back towards the start.
• If he loads at the company where he has just unloaded, that is one stop – see Unloading and loading at one stop.
• Goods still at sea or in the air can be planned beforehand – see Pre-booking.

See also: Dispo – what is it? · Driving Dispo legs · Company account and bank