I don't have trouble getting to the city of destination. It's homing in on the shipper or receiver in that city that's a b*tch. Sometimes the Qual-comm states don't call shipper for directions or gives no number. If that happens odds are I can't get ahold of my FM. I've spent up to 3 hours lost. Can't make any money if I'm lost all the time. Sometimes I get frustrated.

It seems that using both is the best way to trip plan . Does working with the mapping software help give you more confidence going into a unfamilar city? Also do you guys trust the software to give you the best route? Other than having to cross reference truck restricted routes and low bridges.

Trip Planning
 

When thinking of trip planning most companies have a specified route for you to take. So why do you need routing software and what are the issues? What do I need to know?

First there are two things you need to understand. Routing or the marco view of the world and directions or the micro view of the world.

Routing solves for these questions:

1. Can I physically pick up the load on-time? (Without a 1 Giga Watt capacitor and a 1985 Deleon)

2. Can I physically deliver the load to the consignee(s) on time?

3. Do I have enough hours to make these times.

4 Given the above where should I stop for my 10 hour breaks?

Directions solve for:

How do I navigate to the shipper and.or consignees? How do I stay on truck routes and avoid low bridges and other hazards?

You are going to need to answer the routing questions when you get a pre-plan or a load plan. It is never good to accept a load and then find out later you can not physically complete the load legally, safely, and on time. Nothing pissing off a dispatcher more is for you to call and say "I am already late and will have a service violation .." Routing software will tell you how long it takes to get from point A to points B C D ... and how many 10 hour breaks you need so you can figure out the real number of hours it take to safely and legally accomplish the load. I use ALK for this purpose. Also ALK has a pretty good POI base although its display sucks. I use the Points of interest to figure out where I am going to stop for me 10 hour break.

I use a Garmin 7200 backed by Garmin PC GPS software for directions. NOTE: I confirm directions with the shipper and receiver and only use the GPS to confirm where I am and what is coming next. Using a GPS blindly especially ALK's Co-Pilot, is a recipie for disaster. (If you search my comments on ALK you will see my constructive criticism of this application.) With a 70 foot tractor trailer you must have a pretty good idea of where you are going and must not rely on a GPS for directions.

I hope this helps ....

....a brief hijack....

CA...are you still teaming for W&S? Hope all is well.

Yes I am still driving and happy with W&S. A part of that happiness is good routing and directions skills. Particularly with a company like W&S (LTL multi stops into small furniture and carpet stores) depends on the driver to understand the concept of directions very very well ...

Do you guys use mapping programs or websites?

I use MS Streets and Trips to do virtually all of my trip planning. Since my company supplies a route I just compare the route that the company sends with the one the navigation software generates and if there are any differences, most of the time I change it to match the company routing.

I also get specific directions to the shippers and consignees. The beauty of navigation software is you can check the directions before you drive them and often times detect a problem with the directions before you ever leave to go pickup your load or deliver it.

I also check the MCRA for low clearances and restricted routes anytime I’m going to venture off on a road that I never been on and am unfamiliar with. However, I’m currently loading all those locations in my default map of my navigation software and then delineating them with avoid area squares, which prevents the software from routing you accidentally on one of those roads.

Before I had navigation software, I wrote down all the highways as such:

I-78W to I-81S (X1)
I-81S to I-77S (X81)

For final directions, I simply read them a couple of times and commit them to memory.

Have TomTom finally got their commercial drivers software set up for downloading from their website now then or are you using the 'car' software. I know they were/are working on a route planner than you can just download straight into your TOMTOM at home but not sure if they've actually done it yet. Its been along time coming.

lol I guess I should`ve explained myself better, I do most if not all my work in the oil field industry now and theres pretty much only 5 places I run out of and head into, when I do get away from that I rely on my atlas.