How to keep track of exceptional transport permits for your trucks

The simplest way to keep track of exceptional transport permits is to treat each permit as a record tied to vehicles, not as a PDF in someone’s inbox. For every permit, note its number, the vehicles it covers, its validity period and its conditions, and set a warning well before it ends. Then check per truck, not per document, that a valid permit exists. Most lapses happen because nobody saw the end date coming.

Why permits slip through

• They arrive as attachments. A permit lands in a mailbox, gets saved in a folder, and its end date lives nowhere else.
• They are tied to specific vehicles. A permit names particular tractors and trailers, by chassis number or plate. A different truck on the same job may not be covered.
• They run out. Every permit has a validity period, and a renewal arrives as a new document that has to replace the old one.
• The conditions are in the small print. Time windows, escorts and notices to give in advance are easy to miss when the permit is only opened at the roadside.

What to record for each permit

• Permit number and issuer
• Holder
• Vehicles covered, by chassis number or plate
• Valid from and valid until
• Dimensions and mass it allows, and the load
• Route or road network
• Conditions, copied word for word
• The original PDF

Keep the document as the source. Whatever you type into a spreadsheet or system is an index to find it, not a replacement for it.

Watching expiry

• Set a lead time per permit type. Permits that take longer to obtain need an earlier warning.
• Check per vehicle. For each truck that relies on a permit, ask: is one valid today? A truck whose permit ended last week with no new one is a bigger risk than a permit expiring next month.
• Link renewals. When a new permit replaces an old one, mark it, so the old one stops warning and the history stays readable.
• Give the driver the current one. The driver should carry the valid permit for the vehicle they drive today, not last month’s.

How Konvoi does it

With the Permits module, switched on per workspace, Konvoi recognises permits among the documents you upload or forward to your workspace’s own e-mail address. It reads the permit number, holder, validity dates, the vehicles by chassis number or plate, the dimensions and mass, the load, the route and the conditions, and matches each vehicle to your fleet by VIN, then by plate. If the permit number is already in the register, Konvoi points that out, so the new permit can replace the old one. A person reviews and approves every permit before it counts.

Approved permits sit in one register that you can filter on active, expiring and expired, and on the Permits tab of each vehicle. Konvoi warns when a permit enters its lead time, which depends on the permit’s category, and when a vehicle’s standing permit ended in the last 30 days with no valid one in its place. Both warnings go into the daily fleet-health e-mail, each announced once. In the driver portal, drivers see the permits of the vehicle assigned to them today.

Without the module, permits are still recognised and kept with your documents, but not read.