A custom driver app for lorry drivers, taxi drivers, couriers and field service engineers: native iOS and Android, offline-first, with proof of delivery, route instructions, tachograph reading, BCT integration and a direct link to your TMS or scheduling system.
Between the planning office and the delivered load stands one person: the driver. What they do with the app on the road determines whether your planning holds, whether your customer knows when the shipment will arrive, whether you still have to untangle your driving-hours records afterwards, and whether the proof of delivery holds up legally. A custom driver app is therefore not a thin mobile shell over a TMS. It is a working product in its own right, designed from the cab or the van, not from a dashboard in the office.
We build these custom apps for transport companies, taxi operators, courier services and service businesses that find the standard driver module from their TMS vendor falls short. For the broader range of mobile work apps, see our app development services; for the planning and back-office layer this app connects to, read our page on custom transport software.
At first glance a driver app overlaps with a field service app or a work order app, a mobile professional who handles work on the move, takes photos and collects signatures. The difference lies in the transport-specific parts: driving time rules, the tachograph, the BCT cradle for taxis, AETR for international transport, CMR digital signing, and integrations with TMS systems such as Transics, MendriX and Carrierweb, which no other field service app supports as standard.
Alongside work on the road, there is the question of whether a driver is deployable at all: driving licence, Driver CPC and medical certificate each have their own expiry date. How we keep track of all three is covered on our driving licence and Driver CPC monitoring page.
Which direction suits you depends on your type of transport, how deeply the app needs to sit within your planning and compliance chain, and which hardware your drivers use. In the first conversation we advise which combination makes sense.
For parcel, food and general goods couriers operating a fleet of vans. Receive route assignments, navigation instructions, proof of delivery with photo and signature, a return flow, and direct reporting back to planning. Works offline on patchy 4G in outlying areas and synchronises as soon as signal returns.
For hauliers running tractor-trailer combinations, distribution or long-distance haulage. Route assignments with loading and unloading documents, CMR digital signing, tachograph reading via Bluetooth, load management, route guidance with truck-specific routing, and exception reporting (congestion, damage, refusal at the gate). Integrates with TMS systems such as Transics, MendriX and Carrierweb, and with your planning API for real-time ETAs.
For taxi organisations with a BCT obligation or for service companies with service engineers on site. BCT cradle integration for taxis, including the Boordcomputer Taxi protocol, an integration with a customer portal for ETAs, BLE connection with vehicle and truck sensors, hardware buttons on ruggedised Zebra or Honeywell devices, and a work order layer for service engineers — overlapping with our work order app.
A single app usually brings together a collection of work processes that, in standard TMS modules, sit separately or don't work on mobile at all. For your driver, it's one streamlined flow, from logging in at the start of the shift to closing out and syncing when they get back.
For commodity features, we do not replace the driver module of Transics or MendriX. Custom development makes sense when your workflow departs from what those modules can do by default. If you recognise any of these patterns, we are happy to talk further.
Your drivers have been complaining for years about buttons that are too small, screens that must be completed three times per stop, or steps in the wrong order. Standard TMS modules usually cannot adapt those UX choices. Custom development lets us redesign the screens around how your people actually work, often with large buttons, one-handed operation and glove-friendly controls.
Temperature-controlled transport with proof-of-condition requirements, dangerous goods (ADR), heavy transport with notification routes, crane trucks, car transport or medical transport all have reporting and protocol requirements that are not built into mainstream driver modules. A custom app makes that discipline-specific workflow genuinely workable.
You want a stop in the app to send its status immediately to your TMS, planning, customer portal and invoicing administration, without anyone manually transferring data in between. We build that integration layer (see also our page on transport planning API), with conflict resolution for offline moments when several systems have attempted something at the same time.
Do you work with your drivers' personal phones under a BYOD arrangement, or with a fixed fleet of Zebra, Honeywell or TomTom devices? Or a mix, with a rugged device in the tractor and a personal iPhone for break administration? A custom app takes that hardware choice into account, including MDM, kiosk mode and hardware buttons.
For contract transport in the Netherlands the BCT is mandatory, so a driver module that does not support it smoothly is not an option for a taxi organisation. We build in the integration with the BCT cradle, including the pay data flow to your taxi administration, quarter-hour and shift overviews, and correct trip classification.
For transport outside the Netherlands, the AETR agreement governs driving times, the e-CMR protocol covers the digital consignment note, and country-specific rules apply to cabotage or environmental zones. A custom app builds those rules into the screen flow so your driver does not have to remember what is permitted in each country; the app warns before a breach occurs.
A conversation in which we understand what type of transport you do, which TMS you use, which hardware your drivers work on, and where the current workflow gets stuck. At the end we know whether a custom app is realistic for your scale or whether a lighter solution will suffice.
We ride along with two to four drivers from different disciplines: a long-haul driver, a distribution courier and, for example, a service engineer or taxi driver. Plus interviews with your planning and back office. At the end: a concrete scope, screen-flow sketches and a realistic schedule per sprint.
Every sprint delivers a working build that your drivers actually use on the road, not just something tested in a meeting room. We first build the trip and POD flow, then navigation and exception reporting, then the tachograph, BCT or CMR, and finally the deeper integrations.
Integration with your TMS (Transics, MendriX, Carrierweb or another platform), with your scheduling or a client portal, and with the hardware in use: BCT cradle, tachograph, ruggedised scanners, BLE sensors in the tractor unit or van. In the end, the chain is truly closed.
Phased rollout, with training for driver trainers and short video instructions for the rest of the fleet. After that, ongoing management: App Store and Play Store updates, security patches, MDM rollouts for your rugged devices, and further development based on what we learn in practice.
Road haulage and passenger transport are heavily regulated. A good driver app records the evidence that you meet the applicable requirements, not as after-the-fact reporting but built into the workflow on the road.
An employee's location throughout the day is a sensitive category of personal data in the Netherlands. We design the app with privacy by design: location is recorded only during working hours, no tracking during breaks, retention periods per data type, and a transparent overview for the driver of what the app stores about them. A DPIA is a standard part of every major project.
The Working Time Act (Arbeidstijdenwet) and the Driving Hours Decree (Rijtijdenbesluit) form the basis for professional drivers' hours recording in the Netherlands. The app helps the driver avoid exceeding permitted driving or working times, with warnings in advance rather than fines afterwards, and provides the evidence for inspection by the ILT.
For road transport to countries outside the EU, the AETR agreement applies. It is similar to, but slightly different from, the EU driving hours regulation. The app switches between the correct rule set based on where the journey runs, and tracks whether a digital or analogue tachograph is being used.
For contract transport and holders of a wsm licence, the BCT is mandatory under the Regeling boordcomputer taxi. We build the integration with the BCT cradle in line with the protocol, including pay data export to the Sociale Verzekeringsbank and evidence for the ILT and the Tax Authority.
A signature on screen is not automatically a legally valid signature. For CMR signing and POD, where evidence matters in a claim, we use eIDAS-compliant signature levels, with an audit log for each signing event: who signed, when, where, and with which certificate.
Transporting dangerous goods is governed by the ADR agreement, with specific documents in the cab, route restrictions and orange-plate administration. The app keeps the ADR documents available, warns about prohibited routes (such as tunnels in certain categories) and logs evidence for any ILT inspection.
Most carriers and taxi operators already run a TMS or planning package. A custom driver app does not replace it, but wraps its own layer around what the package doesn't do itself, or replaces only the driver module with a clean integration to the rest.
Transics (part of WABCO/ZF) and MendriX are common choices in Dutch and Belgian road haulage; Carrierweb is popular with mid-market carriers that want their own platform. Strong on TMS functions, often more limited in mobile UX and in sector-specific flows. We integrate through available APIs or through structured EDI or CSV exchange.
For planning functions you are more likely to work with Ortec, Locus, Roadnet or similar optimisation packages. The driver app receives the planned route, sends deviations (congestion, delays, damage) back, and supplies real-time position and stop data for the ETA model. For larger hauliers we often build a custom planning API as an integration layer; we wrote about this in our page on transport planning API.
For rugged devices we commonly come across Zebra TC, Honeywell CT and, to a lesser extent, Datalogic devices. For taxis we work with the cradle suppliers certified in the Netherlands for the BCT. We make sure our app runs smoothly on those devices, maps hardware buttons, and rolls out through the right MDM solution (SOTI, VMware, Microsoft Intune).
What hauliers, taxi operators and courier services usually want to know before we start.
A free half-hour introductory call. We listen to your transport workflow, probe into what is currently getting stuck and which integrations need to be added, such as the TMS, BCT, tachograph or customer portal, and give you direction you can act on.
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