Audience: CEO/Owner, Dispatcher, Billing Personnel 
Read Time: 15 Minutes


This article will describe how to manage Charters within the FASTTRAK Platform.

 

Companion Video - InVision 10-Minute Quickstart 


The InVision Charter Management Module allows operators to manage multi-leg (customer and supporting) and multi-vehicle reservations directly within the FASTTRAK software.


 Charter Management is available to ALL customers. There is NOT an additional fee to use Charter Management. Instead, Charter Management includes individual reservations (charter + number legs) and those are billed as standard reservations through the usual billing process.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


What is a Charter?

Simply put, a Charter is a collection of reservations that allow you to manage a multi-vehicle and/or multi-day trip. 


A Charter comes in three basic parts:

  • Charter
  • Move
  • Leg


The Charter is the overall wrapper for the entire set of reservations. It is at the Charter level that you define a Company, Customer and primary contact information.


A Move is the second level within a Charter. In short, the move relates well to an individual Bus or Vehicle involved with the charter. A single Charter may have one or more Moves and a single move can include one or more leg reservations spanning several days.


A Leg is the underlying dispatchable reservation in FASTTRAK. As is with a standard reservation in FASTTRAK, a leg is where you describe pick-up/drop-off, pricing details, Leg type (customer, deadhead, driver swap), etc. The Leg reservation is shown on the dispatch screen in FASTTRAK InVision and FASTTRAK Ultimate.


Important Note: While you can only "manage" Charters and underlying moves and legs within FASTTRAK InVision, you are able to fully dispatch and bill through your normal workflows from all applications, including FASTTRAK Ultimate.


For example: If you were managing a multi-day reservation that required 3 buses with a driver-swap each day (2 drivers per day), a secondary vehicle to swap drivers, and a final leg to move each bus to a final location, you may choose to create the following charter:

  • 1 Charter Reservation
  • 3 Moves (names, BUS 1, BUS 2, BUS 3)
  • 12 Leg reservations
    • 2 customer legs each day (6 total). One for each driver on that day to that each reservation can have a specific driver.
    • 1 driver-swap support legs each day (3 total). The support leg would be used to dispatch the new driver and to return the previous driver back to base.
    • 3 deadhead support legs (3 total). The support leg would be used to dispatch the reservation from customer drop-off to some vehicle storage location.


Note: This would be billed as 13 reservations within your FASTTRAK software. One for the Charter and 12 for each leg reservation.


How do you access Charter Management?

Charter Management is accessible from both FASTTRAK Ultimate and FASTTRAK InVision. However, the icon from FASTTRAK Ultimate will simply open a web link and log you in automatically to the InVision application.


From FASTTRAK InVision


From FASTTRAK Ultimate


Once loaded, you will see all charters within the given date range. As necessary, you can search by name or adjust the date range to limit the search results.


How do I Create a Charter? 


Step 1: Browse to Charter Management and click the Add Charter button. 

The New Charter form is shown allowing you to enter core information for the charter including company, charter name, customer and other relevant information. Once completed, save the charter or click the Add Move or Add Leg options.


Thinks to keep in mind:

  • The Charter name you enter here will be displayed on itineraries and viewable by customers and drivers.
  • The Primary Passenger contact information will be displayed on itineraries and viewable by customers and drivers. 
  • The lead driver is displayed on itineraries and is not dependent on underlying leg reservation drivers
  • The right-side Charter Summary, Move List and Supporting Legs are automatically updated as underlying moves and legs are added to the reservation.
  • The Leg Pick-up and Drop-off dates are automatically calculated based on the earliest pick-up and the latest drop-off  within the underlying legs.



Step 2: Add a move to the Charter

As discussed, a Move is a collection of underlying legs, both customer and support legs. It is up to you to define the legs that you require to manage the trip. For example, there is no reason a single leg couldn't span multiple days.


You can create a move in one of two ways. You can click the Add option within the Move List section on the charter form. Otherwise, you will be required to select an existing move or add a new Move on the New Leg reservation screen.


Step 3: Add Leg reservation(s) to the Charter

You can add any number of legs to a single move using the Add Leg option.


Information Tab

This tab describes basic information for the leg reservation.


Thinks to keep in mind:

  • The Move name you enter here will be displayed on itineraries and viewable by customers and drivers. you can and should be descriptive with your names to properly identify the components of the move
  • Notice the + button next to the Parent Move dropdown. This option allows you to add a new move during the leg reservation process.
  • The Leg Type dropdown allows you to classify the type of leg; Customer Segment, Deadhead, Driver Swap or Other. When generating a Customer Itinerary, only leg reservations of type "customer Segment" are included and viewable by a customer. Other types will only show on the Driver Itinerary.
  • If necessary, you can add additional passengers and/or stops using the Add Stop/Passenger option bottom right on form.



Pricing Tab

The pricing tab allows you to enter pricing information manually OR select from a predefined pricing setup with your system. In addition, you can select an existing pricing plan but then override various aspects of the price using the Override Base Pricing options.


Thinks to keep in mind:

  • You can choose to enter many different types of charges on an individual leg. Examples include: Fuel charge, gratuities, hotel costs, cleaning costs, etc. 
  • The pricing entered here will be displayed and aggregated for any individual leg. It is up to you to determine whether you want hotel costs on one leg or another, customer segment or otherwise. This will determine how and what is displayed on Customer confirmations.


Once pricing is entered, you can click the Calculate Price option to determine distance and duration cost (if applicable, i.e. GEO in use) or simply to determine the length of a given leg. This information will be used to update estimated end time for the pricing details and the estimated end time of the leg reservation.



After clicking Calculate Rate, duration and distance information will be displayed.



Step 4: Review Charter Summary and Send Corresponding Documents

Once all moves and legs have been entered, you can review the Charter summary screen to determine aggregate cost, duration, etc. and adjust details as necessary.


Things to keep in mind:

  • The summary section is an aggregate view across all moves and legs. This includes duration, distance and individually grouped charge items; base rate, toll charges, etc. That is, you will see a sum of all toll charges across all leg reservations within the charter. 
  • The Move List and Leg List also show aggregate cost columns for child charges.
  • Moves and Legs can be modified by using the three-dot menus within the grid.
  • When necessary, you can set a Lead Driver for the Charter. This will be noted on Customer documents.
  • The overall Charter status is derived from the underlying leg reservations. Prior to a trip however, status can e set to Quote or Booked accordingly. This will dictate the Document Labeling when sending the Quote or Confirmation.



Step 5: Send Relevant Documents to Customer and Drivers

From the Charter list or from the Main Charter Form



Document Options are as follows:


  • Charter Quotation: Standard Quotation view with customer segment summary only
  • Charter Confirmation: Standard Confirmation view with customer segment summary only
  • Customer Itinerary: Detailed view of Charter, Moves and Legs meant to provide all customer-level details including charter, moves and customer segment type leg reservations.
  • Driver Itinerary: Detailed view of Charter, Moves and Legs meant to provide ALL details including charter, moves and all leg reservations regardless of leg type.
  • Invoice: The invoice for a charter is the same as normal invoices, except one minor detail. If all reservations on the invoice are for the same charter, a charter summary will be added to the top of the invoice.



Step 6: Dispatch and closeout your Charter's leg reservations as you would any reservation.


As discussed previously, leg reservations will be displayed within your dispatch a nd billing screens. You will assign drivers/affiliates, uses the FASTTRAK Driver App for status updates, and move it through the billing workflow as you would normally. 


Things to keep in mind:

  • The dispatch screens have additional columns especially for charters; including Charter ID, Move Name, Leg Type, etc.
  • The InVision Global search will allow you to search and find all reservations under a single charter for easy dispatching.