Your first week at a courier company sounds like everyone's speaking a different language. The supervisor tells you to check the connote for ATL, scan a POD, watch your GVM, and make sure the DGs are segregated. You nod and pretend you understand while quietly panicking. You're not alone — every new driver goes through this. Here's a plain-English glossary of every acronym and term you'll hear in transport and logistics.
Delivery and Scanning
ATL — Authority to Leave. Permission from the customer to leave a parcel without a signature. If a parcel is marked ATL, you can leave it in a safe spot and take a photo. If it's not ATL (sometimes marked NATL), you need a signature or to card it.
POD — Proof of Delivery. Evidence that a parcel was delivered. This could be a signature, a delivery photo, or a GPS-stamped scan. Your POD is your defence if a customer claims they didn't receive something.
Connote / CN — Consignment Note. The label on the parcel that contains all the delivery information: sender, recipient, address, barcode, special instructions, and service level. Reading the connote properly is one of the most important skills for a new driver.
ETA — Estimated Time of Arrival. When the parcel or you are expected to arrive. Customers often see ETAs through tracking, and businesses may have ETA windows you need to meet.
RTS — Return to Sender. A parcel that can't be delivered and is being sent back to whoever posted it. Common reasons: wrong address, refused, unclaimed after multiple attempts.
DEX / Delivery Exception. Any event that prevents normal delivery — nobody home, access issues, wrong address, damaged goods. Each DEX has a specific code in your scanner.
Freight and Vehicle
GVM — Gross Vehicle Mass. The maximum total weight of your vehicle including the vehicle itself, fuel, driver, and cargo. Exceeding your GVM is illegal and dangerous. For details on mass and dimension limits, see National Heavy Vehicle Regulator mass and dimension guide.
Tare / Tare Weight. The weight of the empty vehicle. GVM minus tare weight equals your maximum payload — how much freight you can legally carry.
DG — Dangerous Goods. Items classified as hazardous for transport: batteries, aerosols, chemicals, flammable liquids. DGs have special handling, labelling, and segregation requirements. The diamond-shaped labels on parcels indicate DG classification.
B2C — Business to Consumer. Deliveries from a business to a residential customer. Your online shopping parcels.
B2B — Business to Business. Deliveries between businesses. Office supplies, parts, wholesale stock.
3PL — Third-Party Logistics. A company that handles logistics for other businesses. Many courier companies are 3PLs — they deliver on behalf of retailers, not their own products.
Operations and Industry
Manifest. The list of all parcels and deliveries assigned to you for the day. Your route plan, essentially.
Run / Route. Your assigned delivery area and sequence. "Your run" is the geographic territory you cover.
Depot / DC — Distribution Centre. The building where freight is sorted and loaded onto delivery vehicles. Where your day starts and ends.
LM — Last Mile. The final leg of delivery from the depot to the customer's door. This is what most courier drivers do — you are a last-mile driver.
SLA — Service Level Agreement. The promised delivery timeframe. Express, next-day, same-day — these are SLAs. Missing an SLA can trigger penalties for the courier company.
SPH — Stops Per Hour. A common performance metric. How many deliveries you complete per hour of work. Higher SPH usually means higher efficiency.
DSP — Delivery Service Partner. An independent contractor business that provides delivery services to a larger company (like Amazon DSPs). The DSP employs the drivers; the parent company provides the work.
OFD — Out for Delivery. The scan status that tells the customer their parcel is on the van and on its way. This triggers the "your parcel is out for delivery" notification they receive.