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.