Systems that run transport and logistics businesses
Transport and logistics businesses run on systems built for one fleet, one depot or one port, usually years ago and usually by someone who knew the trade. Solve With Software takes those systems over and modernises them in stages, so the traffic desk keeps the screen it knows while the drivers, the customers and the accounts get connected to it, and AI takes the retyping of bookings and paperwork off the desk. The pages below describe the kinds of system we see, in both their generations, and what modernising each brings.
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Where these systems run
Haulage firms, container hauliers, pallet-network depots and third-party warehouses run systems like these all over the UK, from the ports to the distribution parks of the Midlands and the North. Nearer home they include the hauliers working Felixstowe and Harwich and the depots along the A12 and A14. Each has a system at its centre that was built for the way that one business works, and each has the same question about it: how do we move it forward without stopping the trucks?
We are based in Colchester and take on systems anywhere in the UK. The work runs remotely wherever the business is, with someone on-site across Essex, Suffolk and London when the system needs it, and the regional page says how the local side works.
The Old Guard, the New Legacy, and the package beside them
Each of these systems turns up in two generations, and most offices have one of them.
The Old Guard was written between the early 2000s and about 2013, usually by a contractor who knew the trade. The haulage dispatch board is a Windows program in Visual Basic 6 or Microsoft Access; the container booking system is an Access front end and a .NET traffic screen sharing one SQL Server database; the compliance records are a transport manager's Access database with a coloured planner beside it. They run on a server in the depot office.
The New Legacy was built from about 2016 by an agency or a freelancer, as a browser system with a drivers' app, or in Power Apps or Zoho Creator by someone in the office. Since 2023 a few offices have tried again in an AI builder and stalled. It opens anywhere, and nobody left in the business can change it.
Plenty of fleets and third-party warehouses run a bought transport or warehouse package instead, with a homegrown piece beside it for the part the package never did. That piece is the same kind of work.
What modernising them usually brings
Three things, whatever the system. The drivers and the customers get connected to it: PODs from a phone, live tracking against the load, a customer login in place of the spreadsheet someone updates by hand. The office gets off the one PC: a supported database, a backup that has been restored on purpose, a board that opens from home. And the business gets paid sooner, because the paperwork that used to take two days to reach the invoice arrives the same afternoon. Once the system is safe to change, AI takes the retyping off the desk as well: the booking read from the forwarder's email, the POD matched to its job, the inspection sheet read into the record. Each system page works out what that gives back at the volumes a typical office of its kind handles.
None of it needs the old system switched off. Each piece is added beside it, on the same data, and the office switches when the new screen is better than the old one.
Systems in transport and logistics
One page per kind of system: the Old Guard version, the New Legacy version, what modernising it brings and where AI helps.
The dispatch system that runs your haulage fleet
- The Old Guard
- Written between 2002 and 2012 by a contractor who knew the trade, in Visual Basic 6 or Access, and still running on a PC in the traffic office.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2016 and 2022 by a small agency or a freelancer as a browser board with a driver app, or put together on a low-code builder.
- Where AI helps
- Booking emails and PDFs drafted onto the board for a planner to check, which typically gives the traffic desk an hour or two a day back.
The booking system that runs your container haulage
- The Old Guard
- Access bookings by a contractor in the mid-2000s, a .NET traffic screen by a local developer around 2012, both on one Windows server in the office.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2016 and 2022 by an agency or a freelancer as browser bookings with a driver app, or on a low-code builder by a bookings clerk.
- Where AI helps
- Forwarders' booking emails drafted into the system for a clerk to check, which typically turns a couple of hours of keying a day into checking.
The stock system that runs your warehouse
- The Old Guard
- A .NET Framework program on SQL Server, written by a local developer between 2008 and 2013, with SSRS customer reports, on the warehouse office server.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2016 and 2022 by an agency or a freelancer as a PHP web system with a scanner app on rugged phones, or on a low-code builder.
- Where AI helps
- Packing lists and delivery notes read into the goods-in booking for a clerk to check, typically giving the desk two hours or so a day back.
The system that keeps your fleet legal
- The Old Guard
- Started in Access between 2005 and 2010 by the transport manager of the day, beside an Excel planner, and run on the compliance clerk's PC.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2016 and 2022 by a freelancer or small agency as a web system with a drivers' app, or on a low-code builder by a transport manager.
- Where AI helps
- Workshop inspection sheets and brake test printouts read into the vehicle record for the clerk to check, typically two to four hours a week back.
Questions
What people ask before they book.
Do the trucks stop while the system is modernised?
No. The old program keeps running and each new piece is built beside it, on the same data: the driver's phone, the customer login, the board in a browser. The traffic desk moves to a new screen when it is better than the old one, and the old one stays open until then.
Our rates and the rules about which truck goes where are in the system and nowhere else. Do they survive?
They are the first thing found. Rate tables, site restrictions, free-day counting and each customer's invoicing exceptions come out of the code with the people who use them, get written down, and go into data the office can see and change. A rewrite from scratch is where rules like these get lost, which is why the old system stays running.
The person who wrote our system has retired. Can it still be taken on?
Yes, and that is the usual starting point for systems like these. The first job is finding the source code, or recovering what can be recovered, and putting it under version control with a test copy beside the live one. From there the rules are read out of the code with the people who use the screens, and written down, often for the first time.
Can AI do anything useful with a system as old as ours?
Yes, once the system is safe to change, and in the paperwork rather than the planning. On systems like these it reads what already arrives in writing, the booking email, the delivery note, the inspection sheet, the line's invoice, and drafts the entry for someone to check rather than type. On a desk keying a few hundred loads a day, the bookings alone are most of that time. It comes after the first stage, because nothing can be built safely on a system that cannot be changed safely, and the assessment maps where it would pay back on the system as it stands.
What does it cost, and how long before we see something working?
The assessment is from £395 + VAT, with an exact price before you commit, and it produces a report with costed options and a fixed price for each. The report is yours. Take it to us, another developer, or nobody. After that, the first stage usually has something working within about six weeks, and each stage is priced before you commit to it.
Start with a free consultation
An hour on your system, online or by phone. From there we size the assessment, from £395 + VAT, and give you an exact price before you commit.
Want the numbers first? See how pricing works.
Written by Marc Allington, founder. .