The Action Board is the screen in Road XS that shows your transport team what needs doing next. Urgent issues, calls waiting to be returned and driver journeys still pending all sit in one place. Nothing lives on sticky notes or in someone's head, so coordinators can work calmly, one job at a time.
Key Takeaways
- The Action Board puts urgent actions, pending calls and pending driver journeys on one screen, so coordinators always know the next job.
- Stress at work is rising. 964,000 workers in Great Britain had stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work in 2024/25, according to the Health and Safety Executive.
- Research shows unfinished tasks keep pulling at your attention until you have a clear plan for them. The Action Board is that plan.
- It works across Dial-a-Ride, DRT, community car schemes, patient transport and school transport.
- A calmer office means fewer missed journeys, happier volunteers and a better experience for passengers and their families.
What is the Road XS Action Board?
The Action Board is a live list of the jobs that need a person's attention. It sits inside the Road XS admin portal and updates as the day changes. Instead of hunting through emails, diaries and spreadsheets, the coordinator opens one screen and sees what matters most right now.
It brings four things together:
- Urgent actions: anything that needs dealing with now, shown first.
- Pending calls: passengers, carers or partners waiting for a call back.
- Pending driver journeys: journeys that still need action before they are ready to run.
- The days ahead: journeys booked weeks or months away, so you can plan early.
We first released the Action Board as a major feature several years ago. Since then it has become the screen many coordinators keep open all day. It works alongside the wider Road XS features, such as driver compliance alerts and live tracking, so the whole operation feeds into one place.
Put simply, it tells you what to do next.
Why does coordinator workload matter?
Running transport for people is demanding work. A missed call can mean a missed hospital appointment, a child waiting at the school gate or a worried family ringing the office. Coordinators hold dozens of these threads at once, often while answering the phone and covering for volunteers who cannot make their shift.
Stress at work is rising
The national picture is not good. HSE figures for 2024/25 show 964,000 workers in Great Britain had stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work. That led to 22.1 million lost working days, an average of almost 23 days for every case. HSE says the rate is higher than it was before the pandemic.
Rates were higher in health and social work and in public administration, the sectors most transport teams work alongside. HSE's analysis of causes points to workload, tight deadlines, too much responsibility and a lack of support from managers. It draws on older survey years, but anyone who has run a busy transport desk will recognise it.
The tools often lag behind
Many teams still manage without proper software. The Community Transport Association found in 2024 that only 37% of community transport operators use journey planning software. For everyone else, the plan lives on paper, in spreadsheets or in the memory of one experienced coordinator who cannot be everywhere.
How does the Action Board reduce stress?
It takes the running list out of your head and puts it on the screen. Research suggests that is exactly what a busy mind needs to settle and focus.
Unfinished tasks stay on your mind
Unfinished tasks nag at us. In a 2011 study, psychologists Masicampo and Baumeister found that unfinished goals caused intrusive thoughts and poorer performance on other tasks. When people made a clear, specific plan for those goals, the effect went away. The plan did the remembering for them.
The Action Board works the same way. Every open task has a place to live. A coordinator no longer needs to remember to ring a carer back at three o'clock, because the board holds it. That frees their full attention for the passenger they are speaking to right now.
Switching between tasks costs time
The American Psychological Association explains that people lose time whenever they switch from one task to another, and lose more as tasks get harder. Juggling bookings, driver changes and phone calls across several systems is exactly that kind of switching, repeated all day long, often with the phone ringing in the background.
One screen means fewer switches. Coordinators work through the list in order of urgency, rather than jumping between a diary, an inbox and three spreadsheets. Each job gets proper attention, which means fewer mistakes and fewer journeys slipping through the gaps between systems and people.
Nothing gets lost when people change over
Community transport often relies on part time staff and volunteers who cover different days. When the task list sits in one person's head, it goes home with them at the end of the shift. With the Action Board, whoever sits down next sees the same list and carries on where the last person stopped.
See it for yourself: book a video call and we will show you the Action Board running on journeys like yours.
What does the Action Board look like day to day?
Here is how a typical morning might run for a coordinator using Road XS.
- 8.30am: Open the Action Board. Two urgent items sit at the top. A driver has called in sick, and a wheelchair user needs a different vehicle on Thursday.
- 8.45am: Deal with the urgent items first. Road XS finds the nearest suitable driver, so the journey is covered in minutes.
- 10.00am: Work through pending calls. A daughter wants to check her mum's pickup time. The call is returned and cleared from the list.
- 11.30am: Check pending driver journeys, then look ahead to next week's hospital runs.
- Afternoon: New issues appear on the board as they happen, so nothing waits for someone to notice it.
Nothing in that morning is unusual. The difference is that the coordinator never has to wonder what they have forgotten. The board holds the list and the coordinator does the work, which is a far calmer way to spend a day than chasing loose ends from memory.
What does the Action Board mean for each role?
A calmer office helps everyone connected to your service, not just the person at the desk.
- Coordinators and schedulers: one clear list of what matters now, with less time spent chasing and more time helping people.
- Transport and operations managers: see at a glance whether the day is under control, and spot pressure points before they turn into complaints.
- Charity CEOs, trustees and board members: fewer missed journeys means less risk to your reputation, and the process stays in place when staff move on.
- Councils and central government teams: dependable services with clear records that stand up when funding is reviewed.
- SEND and home to school transport leads: changes to pickups, escorts and vehicles are raised and dealt with before the school day starts.
- NHS transport leads and buyers: fewer patients arriving late or missing appointments because of a dropped task.
- Managers of sensitive transfers: urgent issues are visible to the whole team, so nothing depends on one person spotting it.
- HR and people teams: a practical way to ease workload pressure, the main cause of stress at work that HSE identifies.
- Drivers and volunteers: clearer plans, fewer last minute phone calls and less chance of a wasted trip.
- Passengers, carers and families: calls are returned, pickups happen on time and someone can always answer "where is the car?"
For health transport, reliability matters a great deal. NHS England Digital recorded 8.1 million outpatient appointments as did not attend in 2024/25. NHS England's guidance on reducing missed appointments lists transport difficulties among the causes outside a patient's control. A dropped call or a forgotten booking change is exactly the kind of gap a shared task list closes.
How is the Action Board different from a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet only knows what someone types into it. The Action Board is fed by the bookings, calls and journeys already in Road XS, so it stays current without extra admin. It also updates for the whole team at once, rather than sitting on one person's computer in the corner.
| Task | Paper and spreadsheets | Road XS Action Board |
|---|---|---|
| Knowing what is urgent | Depends on who looked last | Urgent items shown at the top |
| Returning calls | Notes on paper or in inboxes | Pending calls listed until cleared |
| Driver journeys | Checked by hand | Pending journeys shown on the board |
| Staff changeover | Handover notes, if any | The same live list for everyone |
| Looking ahead | Separate diary or wall planner | Future journeys in the same system |
| Personal data | Loose files and printouts | Kept inside secure, role based portals |
That last row matters more than it looks. Journey records often reveal health needs, and loose paperwork is a real data protection risk for your organisation. Our article on why paper run sheets are no longer good enough explains where that responsibility sits and what trustees and managers need to know.
The Action Board works across every service Road XS supports, including Dial-a-Ride, demand responsive transport, community car schemes, patient transport and school transport. The screen looks the same whatever you run, so teams covering several services only need to learn it once. For more features that quietly save time, read 15 hidden features of Road XS.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Road XS Action Board?
The Action Board is a screen in the Road XS admin portal that lists everything needing attention. It shows urgent actions, pending calls and pending driver journeys in one place, and lets you look ahead to future bookings. Coordinators use it to decide what to do next.
Who is the Action Board for?
It is built for the people who run transport day to day, such as coordinators, schedulers and transport managers. Managers, trustees and funders benefit too, because a clear shared task list means fewer missed journeys and a service that does not depend on one person's memory.
How does the Action Board reduce stress at work?
It removes the need to hold a running list in your head. Research by Masicampo and Baumeister found that making a clear plan for unfinished tasks stops them intruding on other work. The board acts as that plan, and it cuts the time lost switching between systems.
Does the Action Board work for Dial-a-Ride, DRT and patient transport?
Yes. The Action Board works across every service Road XS supports, including Dial-a-Ride, demand responsive transport, community car schemes, patient transport, school transport and group travel. Whatever the service, the board shows the same thing: the jobs that need a person's attention now.
Do you need good computer skills to use the Action Board?
No. The Action Board was designed to be simple for people of any age or confidence with computers. It shows a short, clear list with the most urgent items first. Many coordinators come to Road XS from paper or spreadsheets, and the board is built with them in mind.
How is the Action Board different from a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet only holds what someone types in, and it often lives on one computer. The Action Board is fed by the bookings, calls and journeys already in Road XS. It updates live for the whole team and keeps personal data inside secure portals rather than loose files.
Why should trustees and councils care about coordinator workload?
Workload is the main cause of stress at work that HSE identifies, and overloaded teams make more mistakes. In transport, a mistake can mean a missed appointment or a passenger left waiting. A clear, shared task list protects the service, its reputation and the people who keep it running.
Ready to feel back in control?
If your day runs on sticky notes, spreadsheets and memory, the Action Board will feel like a weight lifted. Tell us how your service works and we will show you how Road XS could fit around it, from the first booking of the morning to the last call of the day.
