I’m a Medway-based HGV driver, and alongside my day job I’m building Rivetway, a fleet and field operations platform shaped by problems I’ve seen first-hand in transport.

It’s still an early-stage business. I’m continuing to work as a driver while developing and testing the software, fitting the two around each other. There’s plenty still to do, but the reason I started has stayed the same: I want to make the everyday running of a transport operation a little less complicated.

When people think about transport, they tend to picture the vehicles. Behind every vehicle, though, there’s a lot of information that needs to move around too.

Drivers need job details. The office needs updates. Vehicle checks need recording, defects need following up, and someone has to keep track of the paperwork.

The difficulty often comes when those pieces are spread across different places. A message on a phone, a paper form, an email and a spreadsheet can each contain part of the picture. Finding out what happened can mean ringing someone, searching through messages or asking for information that has already been given.

That creates extra work for everyone involved. A driver might be trying to finish a job while the office is trying to answer a customer, and both are waiting for something that should be easier to find.

Those are the sorts of problems that led me to start building Rivetway.

Rivetway is being developed around jobs, drivers, vehicles, checks, defects, workshop activity and the records that connect them.

The aim is to make information easier to record during the working day and easier to find afterwards. A job update should stay with the job. A reported defect should be something the right person can follow up. The office should be able to understand what needs attention without having to chase every detail individually.

From the driver’s side, simplicity matters. Something that looks straightforward on an office screen can feel very different when you’re using it on a phone between jobs.

Being a driver influences how I think about those details. I want the software to reflect the circumstances in which people actually use it, including the pressure to get on with the work.

The office and workshop matter just as much. Information needs to be useful to the next person who picks it up, whether they’re arranging work, dealing with a vehicle issue or checking that the necessary records are there.

Building Rivetway while still driving brings its challenges. Time has to be found around work, and progress comes through a series of smaller steps: building something, testing it, finding a problem and improving it.

It also keeps the project connected to the industry it is intended to serve.

I’m still close to the practical realities of the working day. That helps me keep asking whether a feature would actually make someone’s job easier and whether the way it works makes sense.

I’m being open about where the business stands. Rivetway is still developing, and there is more testing and refinement ahead. I want people to understand that stage of the journey and have the opportunity to help shape what comes next.

My next focus is to keep improving Rivetway and learn from drivers and operators who deal with these challenges every day.

Different businesses organise their work differently. Listening to those experiences will be an important part of making the platform useful beyond my own perspective.

Being based in Medway gives the story a local starting point, but the problems behind it will be familiar to people working across transport and field services.

For now, I’m continuing to build, test and learn alongside my driving work. My ambition is to turn that first-hand experience into something practical that helps people spend less of their day chasing information and more of it getting the work done.

Rivetway is an early-stage fleet and field operations platform founded by Medway-based HGV driver David Langstead.

Website: www.rivetway.com

Contact: [email protected]

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