Measure driver productivity
Combine Upper Dashboard KPIs, the Route Plan Summary Report, and the Driver Timesheet Report to measure driver productivity fairly across your team.
Productivity is never one number. In Upper you read it from a few sources together: how many stops a driver completed, how that compares to the rest of the team, how long routes took against their estimate, and — where your workspace tracks shift hours — how many stops they completed per hour worked. Stacked, these tell you who is genuinely productive and who just looks busy.
A driver who finishes 80 stops in a dense neighborhood is not automatically more productive than one who finishes 50 across three towns. Read the metrics in context, and always compare drivers on similar routes.
Your workspace may show Technician and Service labels instead of Driver and Delivery — the wording is configurable. The steps are the same either way; for example the per-driver section reads Technician Performance and service time appears as Average Service time per stop in a service workspace.
Start with the Dashboard
The Dashboard gives you the fastest read on output and how drivers stack up against each other for a chosen period.
On a Starter (free) plan the Route Performance and Driver Performance sections are blurred behind an Upgrade to View button with a PRO badge, so the per-driver charts are not visible. The five KPI cards at the top stay visible on every plan.
Check route timing in the Route Plan Summary Report
Output alone can mislead. The Route Plan Summary Report (one row per route) shows whether a driver is finishing routes efficiently against plan.
A driver who consistently finishes faster than the estimate is working efficiently. One who consistently runs over may be on overloaded routes rather than underperforming — check the stop count and route difficulty before drawing a conclusion.
If a column you need is not showing, open Customize Columns (the grid icon, top-right) and check it on in the Edit Column panel. You can drag columns to reorder them, and your choices are remembered for that report.
Calculate stops per hour with the Driver Timesheet Report
Stops per hour is the strongest single productivity proxy because it is comparable across drivers, shifts, and weeks. Upper does not display it as a built-in metric, so you calculate it by pairing shift hours with stops completed.
The Driver Timesheet Report only appears in the View by dropdown when your workspace tracks shift hours. If you do not see it, your account does not have shift-hour tracking enabled and the per-hour calculation will not be available. The Dashboard output metrics and the Route Plan Summary Report still work without it.
To get both numbers out of Upper, use the Export button (top-right) on each report. In the Export modal you can name the file, choose CSV or XLS, pick fields under the Default or Custom tab, and optionally tick Send e-mail when Export is complete before Start Export.
Benchmark fairly
- Use the same date range for everyone. Pick one period and apply it to the whole team.
- Account for route difficulty. Longer distances and tighter time windows lower stops per hour even for strong drivers.
- Compare like with like. A driver on dense urban routes is not comparable to one on rural long-hauls.
- Read the trend, not the snapshot. Track stops per hour over a month or a quarter; a single week can mislead.
Troubleshooting
Durations and on-time figures are based on historical traffic data, not live traffic. Still seeing something that looks wrong? Email support@upperinc.com.
Related
Identify frequently problematic addresses
Export failed stops from Upper's Route Plan Detailed Report and group them by address in a spreadsheet to find the locations that fail again and again.
Schedule automated reports
Turn on Summary Reports in Upper from Settings > Automations to get route performance and driver stats emailed automatically every week or month.