Running Two or Three Junk Trucks: Splitting Single Items and Cleanouts
The jump from one truck to two is where a lot of junk companies feel the strain. Suddenly the owner isn't on every job. Somebody else is reading the notes, finding the dump and talking to the customer. The way you split the work between trucks decides whether the second truck makes money or just makes noise.
From One Truck to Two
Running alone is covered in Junk Removal Software for a One-Truck Operation. Everything there still applies. This guide adds what changes when there's more than one truck on the road.
The Common Split
Most junk companies with two trucks end up splitting the work by job type:
- Truck 1: single items and small loads. Mattresses, appliances, a couch, a hot tub, quarter loads. Many stops, short visits, often a dump run mid-day.
- Truck 2: cleanouts and big jobs. Estate cleanouts, garage cleanouts, apartment trash-outs, shed teardowns. Few stops, long visits, several dump runs.
The split works because the two kinds of work don't mix well. A single-item truck that stops for a three-hour cleanout misses six pickups. A cleanout truck that runs off for a mattress wastes the crew's rhythm. Load sizes on every job make the split easy: Min Load through 3/8 tends to go to Truck 1, half loads and up to Truck 2.
A third truck usually takes on one of three roles: a second single-item route on the other side of town, a dedicated commercial route for property managers and apartment complexes, or overflow for the cleanout truck on busy days.
Setting It Up
In JunkBossPro:
- Add each truck.
- Add each crew member with a personal PIN and assign them to a truck.
- When you book a job, put it on a truck and a day.
When a crew member logs into the crew app, they see their truck's jobs in route order. On the dispatch board, filter by truck to see each route by itself. Saved views keep each truck's day one click away. The board itself is covered in Dispatch for Junk Removal: Jobs by Day, by Truck and in Route Order.
Filling Each Truck
With two trucks, the Waiting List map gets more useful. Small requests near Truck 1's route can fill gaps in its day. Big requests can anchor Truck 2's next open day. When the office plans tomorrow, it's really planning two separate routes from one map.
Route each truck separately. Filter to Truck 1, auto-route Closest First or Furthest First from the yard, adjust for time windows and dump runs. Then Truck 2. Check whether any job would fit better on the other truck, and move it if so. The crew phones update.
When Plans Change
With more than one truck, the day changes more often. A cleanout runs long, a crew member calls in sick, a same-day call comes in. Crew GPS on the office map shows where every truck is. If a same-day mattress is two stops from Truck 1, give it to Truck 1. If Truck 2 finishes early, move a couple of Truck 1's afternoon stops over. Skips come back with the crew's note, so the office knows why a job didn't happen and can rebook it.
Crews You're Not Riding With
The real change with a second truck is that you're not there. The crew app carries what you'd have told them:
- Load size, items and what's going on every card
- The haul-to with a Go button, so a new hire can find the transfer station
- Access notes and past notes on the address
- Start, Skip and Complete, so the office sees progress
- Before and after photos, so you can see the work without driving over
- The time clock, so hours are recorded on the same phone
Ratings from the customer app give you a quiet read on how each crew is doing.
Office Help
At two or three trucks, many owners bring in someone to answer the phone and run the board. Office user roles let you give that person access to what they need. They can take calls, build estimates from the service list, book jobs onto trucks and answer customer texts, while the owner spends more time on estimate visits and commercial accounts.
Which Plan?
The Pro plan at $89 a month includes 1,000 texts, and Crew at $199 a month includes 2,000, sent and received. With more trucks come more jobs and more customer alerts, so the text allowance is usually the deciding factor. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with no credit card.
More Trucks, Same System
Two or three trucks run best when each one has a clear job and every crew has the same information the owner would. To see how the whole system fits together, go back to the JunkBossPro junk removal software page.
Give Every Truck a Clear Job
JunkBossPro assigns crews to trucks, filters dispatch by truck and shows every crew their own route on their phone.
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