Driver attendance for transport and fleet operators

Three kinds of duty, three ways to record them

A fleet mixes people who report to one place every day with people who may not see the depot for a week. Trying to force one punch method on all of them creates fake punches and angry drivers. Match the method to the duty instead, and write it into the attendance policy so supervisors do not improvise.

• City, staff transport and school bus drivers: punch at the depot kiosk or from the app at duty start and end
• Long-haul drivers: on duty requests for trip days, checked against the trip sheet
• Workshop and control room: kiosk or biometric at the depot, on their shift
• Depot office: web punch from the office network

A long-haul trip, day by day

Gurpreet leaves the Ludhiana depot at 5:40 am on 3 March with a load for Chennai, unloads on 7 March, picks up a return load and reaches Ludhiana at 9 pm on 11 March. He is on the road for nine calendar days. He raises on duty requests for 3 to 11 March from the app, writing the trip sheet number in the reason. The fleet supervisor matches them with the trip sheet and approves, then HR approves, and all nine days count as worked days. If 8 March was his weekly off, it was spent driving, which is a comp-off question for the leave policy rather than an attendance one.

Between trips, when Gurpreet waits at the depot for a load or helps in the yard, he punches in and out like city drivers do. That keeps idle days visible instead of silently paid, and it shows the depot manager how many drivers sit waiting for loads each week, which is a planning problem worth knowing about.

Split duties for school buses

A school bus driver works two windows: roughly 6:15 am to 9:30 am for the morning pickup and 1:15 pm to 4:15 pm for the afternoon drop. Set this up as a split shift with two windows in the shift catalogue, so the long gap between the routes is not treated as work. Late marks then apply to each duty start, which matters because a bus that leaves the depot at 6:30 am instead of 6:15 am makes children wait at every stop on the route.

What an app punch records, and what it does not

A punch from the ZeniaHR mobile app carries the phone's GPS location at that moment, and phone binding ties each driver's punches to their approved phone, so one driver cannot punch for another. Depot punches can be limited to the depot's check-in spot. The app does not follow the vehicle after the punch or record the path driven. Where you need to know where a vehicle is during a trip, that comes from your vehicle's own GPS system and the trip sheet, which are separate from HR attendance.

Month close with the trip sheets on the table

Before closing the month, the depot manager checks each long-haul driver's approved on duty days against the trip register and each city driver's punches against the duty chart. Missed punch-outs after a late drop are fixed through corrections approved by the supervisor and HR. Penalties caused by a breakdown or a highway closure should be waived with a written reason. Only then does HR close the month, which freezes attendance for payroll.

How to set it up in ZeniaHR

1. Create each depot as a location, and put drivers, workshop, control room and office staff in separate departments.
2. Mount a kiosk tablet in each depot office, tied to that depot's check-in spot, where city drivers and workshop staff punch at duty start and end.
3. Turn on phone binding so every driver's app punches come only from their approved phone, with GPS location on each punch.
4. Ask long-haul drivers to raise on duty requests for trip days with the trip sheet number, approved by the fleet supervisor and then HR.
5. Define split shifts for school bus drivers with a morning and an afternoon window.
6. Before month close, reconcile on duty approvals with trip sheets, waive breakdown penalties with a reason, then close the month.

Read more about attendance in ZeniaHR.

Roles this applies to

Frequently asked questions