Yes, the terminal contacts the contractor. "Every 5 minutes", is an exaggeration, however, and in reality issues only come up once or twice a day and are usually minor. By minor I mean something like, "Can you make sure your driver Bill is using complete service crosses so the Van Security Audit at the end of the night is accurate?" Alot of times the calls and questions are more of an irritation than any cause for concern.
As far as an IC driving daily, that is soon going by the way-side in Illinois. The company really wants ISP owners to be more available to "run their buisness". In that case, the company meets with a "key contact" in the morning and brings up service issues, questions and concerns and the "key contact", usually the ISP principal addresses them from that point on. Still much the same as the contractor model should be implemented, only now far more profitable for the ISP pricipal to be off the road.