I use Streets & Trips with the Truck Stops Plus add on template and I use it for the same reason that Malaki uses the Garmin, because you can easily manipulate your routes in any kind of way you desire, which is something you can’t do with most stand alone GPS devices. I also use it because I have been using it since the fall of 2005 when the 2006 version first came out or for almost 5 years now. Hence, I know every trick in the book and would consider myself a power user.
I also use the same truck stop database Malaki uses as well, which is the Truck Stops Plus add on template for Streets & Trips, which makes searching and routing to truck stops a breeze. Incidentally, with the 2010 version of Streets & Trips you can also easily extract that database and upload it into a stand-alone GPS device if you have one of those too, which I do and did also.
Another thing I have been doing for the past three years is adding all my shippers and consignees to Streets & Trips as I go to them. Hence, today it is very seldom that I go to a shipper or consignee that is not already on my template database. Hence, I can also plan and route a trip in a small fraction of the time it would take to do it otherwise.
Finally, the bing map feature in Streets & Trips where you can center the map, click the bing button and get an aerial view in a browser window is a very handy feature to have and I use it all the time and also every time I’m going to a Wal-Mart Supercenter I haven’t been to before in order to see what is the best way to approach and where to park.
As for as truck specific goes, none of the truck specific GPS devices are nearly reliable enough to be relied upon and all of them are also plagued with tons of other issues as well. My friends that bought them also all stopped using them after they realized the routes they generated were always quite a bit longer anyway. In any event, the company I work for supplies us with legal truck specific routes. Hence, I simply sync that company supplied legal truck route into Streets & Trips and I’m good to go.
Oh yeah another reason I prefer Streets & Trips to my standalone GPS device is I can multitask since I can open up several instances of Streets & Trips simultaneously, leave them minimize, then use them for different chores without disturbing the current trip I’m on, and you can’t do that with a standalone GPS device. Hence, if I get a preplan I can quickly plug it in and make a decision to accept or decline it or if I want to see how far a particular truck stop, drop lot, shipper, or consignee is from my present location, I can do it in a flash.
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