Transportation
Shift Bidding Software for Transportation
Reduce union grievances, save hours, and make everything auditable. Used by ground transportation, public transit, automotive logistics, and airport ground services teams across North America.
Union
Agreement compliance
US-based
Sales, support & dev
$500
starting per year
The current problem with bidding
Chaos of paper bids
Someone on your team spends hours chasing down drivers. Another person collects replies, resolves conflicts in a spreadsheet, and tries to keep everything straight. By the time it’s done, half a day or more is gone, and you’re not 100% sure you got it all right.
Union grievance risk
When a bid runs on paper or email, there’s no record. No timestamp. No proof of who saw what or when. Union members know it, and they will use it. A disputed bid costs time, money, morale, and puts management’s credibility into question.
Qualification problems
Manual bids don’t check whether a driver holds the right certifications before they make a selection. If CDL class, route qualification, and special needs certifications aren’t enforced automatically, it falls on your staff to catch it, usually after the fact. Not a good plan!
ShiftBID was built to help companies deal with these issues
ShiftBID automates the entire bid process. You set the system rules once for seniority, qualification requirements, bid window, and bid mode. Then you start the bid, step back, and let the system run it. When it closes, your results are ready. These will be auditable and defensible to both the company and the union. Whether you’re running a weekly route bid for 80 drivers, a transfer bid between stations, or an annual position bid across multiple stations/terminals/yards/sites, ShiftBID keeps everything in one place and gets it done.
Features for Transportation
Qualification Gating
You can assign qualifications to positions (CDL class, route certification, or any other grouping you define). When a driver opens the bid, they only see shifts they’re qualified to take. No manual checking. No post-bid corrections. Eligibility is enforced automatically, before selections are made.
Qualification bidding
Seniority-based Ordering
ShiftBID establishes bidding order by hire date automatically. Same-day ties are broken by employee number. If your contract requires a different order, you can set it manually or configure a custom group sort. The system follows whatever seniority logic your operation requires, and applies it consistently, every time.
Seniority bidding
Auto Pre-bid
Before the bid opens, employees can rank their preferred positions in order. When their turn comes in the live bid, ShiftBID automatically awards them the highest-ranked option still available. Immediately, it becomes the next person’s turn to choose.
Shift Filters
Instead of scrolling through a wall of options, drivers can filter by start time, days off, activities, and eligibility. A driver who needs Wednesdays off can surface only those positions in seconds. Faster decisions, fewer mistakes, and happier employees.
Full Audit Trail
ShiftBID records who participated, when they bid, what they selected, and what options they ranked. If a driver claims they didn’t have access or questions how a result was determined, the answer is in the system. Transparent to management and defensible to the union.
Bidding results
Multi-Location, One Price
Multi-location operators get a separate tenant URL for each site. Each yard, station, or terminal runs its own bid independently, without employees from other locations showing up in the list. No additional cost per location. Pricing starts at $500 per year for 50 employees.
PricingCase Study
Featured Customer Story: Illinois School District
An Illinois School District was running its annual bus route bid manually, coordinating dozens of drivers across multiple routes. ShiftBID automated seniority ordering, simplified the selection process for drivers, and delivered published results without the administrative back-and-forth.
Case studyTestimonial
“We are a public school district with around 200 Drivers and Monitors. Bidding for routes 3-4 times a year has always been a time-consuming process. We have tried several methods to streamline this over the years without spending loads of time or money and never quite got where we wanted. ShiftBID has been our answer to all our bidding needs…”
Mike B. Peoria, IL
How it works
[fl_builder_insert_layout id=”950″ type=”fl-builder-template”]Benefits
Ranked Bid: (recommended for most transportation operations) Everyone bids at the same time over a set window, typically 24 to 72 hours. Each employee ranks all positions they’d want in order of preference. When the window closes, the system assigns positions from the top of the seniority list down. Employees can bid on their own schedule, no need to be online at a specific moment.
Sprint Bid: One employee at a time, but the clock for the next person starts as soon as the current person submits, not when their time window expires. Works well for faster bids where employees are on standby. Pairs with pre-bid for employees who want to submit their rankings in advance and let the system handle their turn automatically.
Standard Bid: One employee at a time with a fixed window per person, typically 24 or 48 hours. The most structured, fully sequential option. Best for organizations where bid protocol is explicitly defined in the CBA.
FAQs
Will the union accept software for the bid?
In most cases, yes. ShiftBID gives the union more transparency, not less. Every bid is logged and every selection is timestamped. If a member disputes their result, the record is there.
The best way to get union buy-in is a mock bid. Show the stewards how the system works, walk through a test bid in a meeting room, and let them ask questions. Organizations that have done this have moved forward without contract issues.
We’re mid-contract. Can we switch without triggering a grievance?
ShiftBID is designed to enforce rules, not change them. Whatever your CBA specifies about seniority order, minimum bid windows, eligible positions, and notification requirements, those same rules get configured into the system. There are no new rules introduced. You’re simply replacing the paper and spreadsheet process with software that follows the same rules more reliably.
Our drivers aren’t tech savvy. Will they actually use it?
The employee experience is intentionally simple. Drivers log in from any browser, click the link to the active bid, rank their choices, and hit save. That’s it. No app to download, no account to create from scratch.
Onboarding is easily done through email. For employees who simply won’t engage digitally, a supervisor can sit with them, log in on their behalf with their credentials, and walk them through the bid in person. The system supports that.
We already use routing software. Does ShiftBID replace it?
No. ShiftBID handles the bid process. Once the bid closes and positions are assigned, those results are exported as a CSV that feeds into your routing or scheduling system. If you have a specific integration requirement, our team can review it and usually accommodate a custom export.
$500 per year
up to 50 employees bidding
+$10/year per additional employee
Pricing details