How to manage collections and deliveries during the day

In brief

Collections and deliveries are often where the plan meets reality. A trip may have been well organised, but a two-hour wait at the warehouse changes everything that follows. Since 2025, this issue has become even more relevant from a legal perspective too: Italian rules on waiting times for loading and unloading have been rewritten.

For an SME, it is therefore useful to record at least four moments: scheduled appointment, actual arrival, start of the operation, end of the operation. This data helps both to manage the day and to reconstruct any disputes.

Before arrival

The driver should have enough operational information without having to call the dispatcher back for every detail:

• correct address and entrance to use;
• customer/warehouse contact;
• time window;
• useful contact;
• order number or booking reference;
• goods and any special instructions;
• required documents;
• any safety instructions communicated by the site.

The dispatcher, in turn, needs to know whether the appointment is “indicative” or whether a 15-minute delay could mean losing the slot.

The 90-minute rule for loading and unloading

Law no. 105 of 18 July 2025, converting Decree-Law 73/2025, replaced Article 6-bis of Legislative Decree 286/2005. The new rules establish an allowance period of 90 minutes for each loading or unloading operation, calculated from the carrier's arrival at the place of the operation.

The text also considers waiting periods caused by the inactivity of the contracting party, loader or consignee. The rules also provide for compensation where the allowance is exceeded; the framework introduced in 2025 sets the basic amount at 100 euros for every hour or fraction of an hour of delay, subject to the adjustment provided for by the law. Specific responsibilities and mechanisms apply and should be read in the current text for the specific case.

For a small company, this does not mean “automatically invoicing every wait”. It means that waiting is an economic and legal fact, not merely an operational nuisance.

How to prove the arrival time

The 2025 rules give weight to proof of arrival. In certain circumstances, the carrier may demonstrate the time through records from the vehicle's satellite geolocation system or the second-generation smart tachograph.

This makes consistent data management important. However, if the company uses geolocation systems, it must also consider privacy and employment rules: collecting the position of a vehicle driven by an employee is not separate from the processing of personal data.

During operations

The driver must know when they can report a problem and to whom. Examples:

• goods or quantities that differ from those expected;
• visibly damaged packaging;
• inability to access the site;
• a wait exceeding the internal threshold set by the company;
• a request to change the destination or goods;
• conditions that make loading unsafe.

The aim is not to turn every difference into a dispute, but to prevent the driver from making commercial or documentary decisions that belong to the company.

Delay and exception: communicate before they become a surprise

When a delay at the first unloading puts a second delivery at risk, the dispatcher needs to know while there is still an opportunity to act. A simple rule may be: once a certain waiting threshold is exceeded, the driver reports the exception; the system or dispatcher reassesses the following activities.

It is important to distinguish between expected delay and actual delay. Telling the customer “we will arrive 40 minutes late” is a forecast; recording the actual time then makes it possible to understand how much the issue really affected the operation.

Practical example

Appointment at 08:00. The vehicle arrives at 07:55 and is admitted to the yard at 08:10. Loading starts at 09:50. With informal management, all that remains is the phrase “they kept us waiting for nearly two hours”.

With structured management, the appointment, arrival and start of the activity are available. The data can be used to recalculate the plan, discuss the matter with the customer and, where applicable, assess the effects of the waiting-time rules with the support of an adviser.

Checklist

• Is the appointment time recorded?
• Can the driver record or communicate the actual arrival?
• Is there a procedure for reporting unusual waits?
• Are subsequent activities replanned when necessary?
• Does the company keep the elements useful for reconstructing the wait?
• If it uses GPS/geolocation, has it checked privacy and employment obligations?