Fuel distribution fleets get the most from optimization tools that put truck utilization and driver hours on one board instead of two separate screens.
Talk to enough dispatchers at fuel and oil & gas distribution fleets and a common complaint surfaces: the tools they have show truck utilization on one screen and driver hours on another, and somebody still has to hold both pictures in their head at once.
That's less of a software gap than it sounds, and more of a design choice most general freight TMS platforms made early on, treating dispatch and utilization forecasting as separate modules. It works fine for freight that isn't running against tight delivery windows. It works less well for fuel distribution, where a delayed stop doesn't just annoy one customer, it usually forces a reshuffle of the rest of the day's schedule.
A few platforms have tried to close that gap directly. BeyondTrucks rolled out smart scheduling features in early 2025 built around this exact problem, predictive ETA using live GPS data to catch delays before they threaten the next delivery window, and a smart duration display that uses a fleet's own lane history instead of generic estimates. Both feed into virtual scheduling boards designed to mirror how load planners already work, rather than requiring dispatchers to translate between systems.
Fleets still running manual scheduling boards or spreadsheets aren't necessarily doing it wrong, it's a workable approach at smaller scale. But it does mean schedule conflicts tend to surface after they've already happened rather than before, since there's no real-time delay data feeding the board.
For mid-size and larger fuel distributors specifically, the fleets reporting the biggest utilization gains tend to be the ones that stopped treating truck scheduling and driver-hours tracking as two separate jobs, and started using one system that shows both at once.
Mahriah Alf
Head of Product
Mahriah Alf is a seasoned AI product leader who currently serves as Head of Product at BeyondTrucks, where she leads the development of AI-native solutions for enterprise fleet operations.