The facts a booking carries are not a matter of opinion #
Transport offices tend to describe their booking process as something local, shaped by the customer and by habit. For international road movements it is not local at all. The list is written down in the CMR Convention, which sits in the schedule to the Carriage of Goods by Road Act 1965, and Article 6(1) sets out what the consignment note shall contain:
| Particular | In practice |
|---|---|
| Date and place the note was made out | Today, and your office |
| Name and address of the sender | The customer, or their customer |
| Name and address of the carrier | You, or the subcontractor |
| Place and date of taking over the goods, and the place designated for delivery | Collection and delivery, with the dates |
| Name and address of the consignee | The delivery point |
| Description of the goods and method of packing, and for dangerous goods their recognised description | Product, packaging, any ADR class |
| Number of packages and their special marks and numbers | Pallet count and references |
| Gross weight, or the quantity otherwise expressed | Weight, cube, loading metres |
| Charges relating to the carriage | The rate, and anything supplementary |
| Instructions required for customs and other formalities | What the declaration will need |
| A statement that the carriage is subject to the Convention | Fixed text on every note |
That is eleven categories of fact, gathered at the point of booking, before a wheel turns. Domestic work is not governed by CMR, but a domestic booking carries almost the same set, because the set is not a legal invention. It is simply what you need to know to move something from one place to another and bill for it.
The booking is evidence, not the deal #
Worth being precise about this, because it changes how an office should think about the paperwork. Article 4 of the Convention states that the contract of carriage is confirmed by the making out of a consignment note, and that the absence, irregularity or loss of the note does not affect the existence or the validity of the contract.
the absence, irregularity or loss of the note does not affect the existence or the validity of the contract
Article 9(1) makes the note prima facie evidence of the making of the contract, its conditions, and the receipt of the goods by the carrier. In other words the document does not create the obligation. It proves it.
Which is exactly why a booking record that is thin, late or inconsistent with the note causes arguments months later, and why the same facts have to agree across every copy. Article 5 requires three original copies of the consignment note.
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The first, handed to the sender
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The second, to accompany the goods
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The third, retained by the carrier
Where the same facts get typed again #
Follow one export movement through and count the places the booking data reappears.
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The booking record itself
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The consignment note
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The export declaration
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The goods movement reference
GOV.UK describes it as carrying a reference for all goods contained in a vehicle, trailer or container, and multiple declarations can be uploaded to one reference.
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The driver's own pack
GOV.UK lists the CMR note, export licences, a movement reference number and any carnet among the documents an HGV driver must carry on an international journey, alongside their licence, Driver CPC card, passport and tachograph records.
None of those documents is optional and none of them is a duplicate of another, because each has a different audience and a different format. But the facts inside them overlap heavily, and the overlap is where the typing goes. This is the same pattern we describe on orders arriving by phone and email in a completely different trade: one set of facts, several destinations, and a human moving them across by hand.
The checks inside a booking that are pure arithmetic #
Two questions get asked on almost every enquiry, and both have published answers rather than judgement answers.
44,000kg
Maximum for an articulated vehicle on six axles
GOV.UK, HGV maximum weights
9 hours
Daily driving, extendable to 10 hours twice a week
GOV.UK, drivers hours assimilated rules
45 minutes
Break after no more than 4 hours 30 minutes driving
GOV.UK, drivers hours assimilated rules
Does it fit legally? GOV.UK publishes maximum weights for articulated vehicles by axle count, and states plainly that a vehicle is overloaded if it exceeds the weight limits displayed on either the manufacturers' or ministry plates, whether on an axle, gross or train weight. Comparing a stated gross weight against a plated limit is a comparison, not a decision.
Is it a day's work? Under the assimilated drivers' hours rules a driver may drive 9 hours in a day, extendable to 10 hours twice a week, and must take a break or breaks totalling at least 45 minutes after no more than 4 hours 30 minutes driving. Whether a collection and a delivery can sit inside one shift is therefore constrained by numbers that are published and fixed.
The planner still decides what to do about it, but the arithmetic itself does not need a planner.
Which parts of booking a load run on rules #
Runs on rules
- Pulling the eleven CMR particulars out of an email or a portal, where the fields are defined
- Spotting that a booking is missing a weight, a reference or a delivery window, which is a completeness check
- Checking a stated gross weight against a plated limit, which is published arithmetic
- Working out whether collection and delivery fit one driving shift, where the rules produce the answer and a planner decides what to do with it
- Producing the consignment note from the booking, which restates facts already held
Needs a planner
- Deciding whether to accept the load at that rate, the commercial heart of the job
- Deciding which driver goes to a difficult consignee, which takes knowledge of people
- Deciding what to do when a window closes and the vehicle is late, under pressure
If you want to see how much of your week sits in the left hand column, the which tasks run on rules checklist is the quickest way to sort them, and the cost of admin time calculator puts hours against them.
The downstream half of the same cycle, where the facts have to come back to you rather than go out, is covered on getting PODs back. The pricing question that sits in front of a booking is on rate requests and quoting.