JunkBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Dispatch

Filling a Half-Empty Junk Truck From the Waiting List

A junk truck that drives to the dump half full costs almost as much to run as one that drives there full. The fuel, the crew hours and the drive are about the same. The difference is what you billed. Filling the empty space is one of the simplest ways a junk company makes more from the same truck.

The Map Does the Hard Part

How the Waiting List works is covered in The Waiting List Map: Seeing Every Unbooked Junk Request Before You Plan Tomorrow. This guide is one specific use of it: finding work to fill the room left in a truck.

The idea is simple. Look at what a truck is carrying, see how much room is left, then look at the unbooked requests near its route.

Step One: Add Up the Loads

Every job in JunkBossPro has a load size: Min Load, 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, 3/4, 7/8, Full Load, or 1.5, 2 or 3 loads. Filter the dispatch board by truck and add up the day.

A truck with a 1/2 load and a 1/4 load between unloads has about a quarter of the box left. A truck with three single items and a 1/8 load has a lot of room. Those sizes are estimates, so leave a little slack, but they give you a real number to plan with.

Load sizes also show when room appears mid-day. If the truck unloads after stop three, everything after that is a fresh truck.

Step Two: Look Around the Route

Open the Waiting List map and look at the pins near that truck's stops. You're looking for requests that are:

• Close to a stop already on the route, or on the way to the dump.
• Small enough to fit what's left in the truck.
• Flexible on timing, or already asking for that day.

Single items and small loads are perfect fillers. A curbside mattress, a garage fridge, a 1/8 load of boxes.

Step Three: Call or Text the Customer

If the request didn't ask for that day, ask. Two-way texting from the office makes this quick: “We have a truck near you tomorrow morning, can we pick up the recliner then?” Most flexible customers are happy to be done sooner.

Once they say yes, give the job the day and the truck. It moves from the Waiting List to the dispatch board.

If they say no, that's fine. The request stays on the Waiting List and you try the next pin. It helps to keep the ask short and specific: the day, a rough time, and what you're picking up. A vague “we might be around sometime” gets ignored. A clear “Thursday morning for the recliner, okay?” gets a quick yes from most people who were flexible to begin with.

Step Four: Re-Route

Auto-route the truck again, Closest First or Furthest First from the yard, or drop the new stop in by hand next to the job it's nearest. Check the order against the load sizes so the filler stops land before the unload, not after the truck is already full.

The crew sees the new stops on their phones in order. The customer gets the same night-before, on-the-way and arrived alerts as everyone else, depending on their preferences.

Fill It on the Way to the Dump

The best filler stop is often on the drive to unload. Each job has a haul-to stop, so you know where the truck is headed. A single item a mile off that path costs almost nothing extra to pick up. Dump timing is covered in Planning Dump Runs Between Junk Removal Jobs.

One caution: if the filler item is going somewhere different, like an appliance for a metal recycler, the crew may need a second unload stop. That job's own haul-to stop shows on the card with a Go button.

Fill It During the Day

Room also opens up while the trucks are out. A cleanout turns out smaller than quoted. A customer cancels. A job gets skipped. When that happens, check crew GPS on the office map, see where the truck is, and look at the Waiting List pins nearby. A quick text to a flexible customer can turn an empty afternoon into two more paid jobs.

Make It a Habit

Filling trucks isn't a special project. It's a minute or two each night, looking at each truck's room and the pins around it. Over a season it adds up to a lot of jobs that cost you almost nothing to do. For more on routing and dispatch, see the JunkBossPro junk removal scheduling software page.