o/o's need better software
 

In doing some research about fuel prices etc.. I've come to the conclusion that we need better software to optimize fuel purchases.

promiles and such are ok, but they do not take into consideration fuel tax rates, and routing. It might be better to buy fuel (base price) at a higher price if it routes you through a cheaper fuel tax state.

What I'm proposing is a piece of software that does all the following:

- Routing, including GPS

With routing, as I said above, it would consider truck routes, REAL TIME fuel prices, fuel tax rates, and everything else.

- Tracks your miles

Via GPS and your trucks ECM
For fuel tax purposes(my company does this through qualcomm)

- Tracks fuel used

Via ECM to optimize fuel purchases

With all of this information it could calculate your REAL fuel cost. It could potentially save you thousands per year, in fuel purchases, and not having to do IFTA by hand.

At the end of the day, you would be able to see how much fuel you've burnt, where you burnt it, and what you're paying to each jurisdiction.

Of course you would need to run your laptop all the time with GPS hooked up. You would also need an air card to keep up to date fuel prices, and fuel tax rates.

All you would have to do for IFTA is enter the amount of gallons you filled up, and make sure it has the right state.

There is software that does all that, with the exception of a tie-in with the ECM. The large fleets use different offerings. You can accomplish the same thing in a couple of minutes with a calculator and the internet.

But pro miles and other software is just a simple "A truck stop is cheaper then B truck stop" and does not take into consideration that B might be better, because it's on a route through a cheaper state.

Qualcomm has a smaller GPS unit available for carriers that will do the fuel taxes. It costs about $1,600. I thought about getting one for my trucks. They will do your fuel taxes using GPS for a monthly fee. When I spoke with them they told me that they would charge me about $45/month for 2 trucks. If you are interested, I may still have the link.

That would only be a portion of what I want.

I'm pretty sure that's what my company uses.

http://www.promiles.com/pmo.asp

That would be incorporated as well, including GPS tracking(just like a GPS unit), trailing fuel costs(REAL calculated fuel cost, including IFTA over/under charges) for the day/week/month.

It would basically replace all the features of promiles, pc miler truck laptop, and it would make fuel cost charts for you. All in one nice integrated package.

I'm not talking about ProMiles and the like. There are some other programs available, I'm just too lazy right now to track them down. But they're too pricey to be practical for anyone but larger fleets. I still stand behind my calculator :lol: which is probably the issue. I wouldn't spend much on software that does things I can do easily enough myself.

Yeah but there's no way you know the live prices of every truck stop along your route.

dieselboss.com :wink: gets ya pretty close.