How to succeed in your role as transport manager

Transport managers have a unique role, you are responsible for directing, coordinating, planning and overseeing tasks and operations within your organisation.  You are also required to ensure the business remains legally compliant and all regulations are met.

Ensuring you succeed as a successful transport manager starts with your training, it’s imperative you  attend a reputable and certified training company who will give you the skills, knowledge and confidence to carry out your duties.

When you do become a fully qualified transport manager, succeeding in your Transport Manager CPC qualification, what happens next?

What role will you play in driver training and safety?

You will be central to the planning of driver training, which in turn forms an integral part of fleet management. The role of driver training is essential in creating a safe driving culture throughout the entire workforce and underlining the importance of road safety. This needs to take the form of continual training and development, with careful and consistent monitoring of driver performance.

What role will you play in regard to tachograph records?

It is the transport managers’ responsibility to ensure that accurate tachograph records are made and that they are available for inspection whenever requested by authorities. For analogue tachographs, transport managers should maintain a register of charts issued to and returned by individual drivers; though this is not a specific legal requirement, it will make it easier to identify instances where drivers have failed to hand in a tachograph record. For digital tachographs, transport managers must ensure that records are kept. They should make sure that downloads of digital tachograph records and vehicle units are undertaken regularly. Where analysis of tachograph records uncovers anomalies and infringements, these must be formally raised with the driver concerned.

What are traffic commissioners and what powers do they have?

Traffic Commissioners oversee regulation and licensing of firms operating heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches, as well as the registration of local bus services. It is their job to ensure that fleet operators and their employees meet the requisite standards. This means that they have considerable power over transport managers, including the power to impose bans on those considered to be failing in their job, these bans can be indefinite in the most serious cases.

Transport Commissioners will work with transport managers who raise concerns directly with them and will help to ensure that these are addressed, it is therefore essential that transport managers are candid and upfront with Transport Commissioners wherever issues affecting their ability to do their job arise.

Get the right transportation management technology

Finding an effective transport management system (TMS) can return major savings, it can help monitor shipments, assess carrier performance, optimise routing and provide end-to-end visibility.

Think about how you will use your TMS, what benefits it should bring and whether it will scale your company’s needs as you grow.

It should help you manage contracts, shipment visibility, customer notifications, shipping trends and accounting tasks.

What is the traffic commissioner looking for in a transport manager?

The Senior Traffic Commissioner for Great Britain issues guidance with regards to the requirements for transport managers, these include:

·         The person must be of good repute and the CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence) must be appropriate for the type of licence being applied for.

·         Be professionally competent

·         Effectively and continuously manages the transport activities of the undertaking

Read the full traffic commissioner document here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984361/Stat_Doc_3_Transport_Managers_-_Version_9.0.pdf

For more information on transport manager CPC training or advice on how to start your journey to become a transport manager, feel free to contact our transport team.