Trip Planning: Old School Meets New School

Hi all; I told someone that I would post what I do as far as trip planning and a method I think is both cost effective and utilizes both old school map skills and today's GPS and internet technology. It's not the end all of methods and some may say it's a little overkill and it is certainly not "THE right way" as there are MANY right ways to do things. It's just how I do it and you can cherry pick parts of it that fork for you and leave the parts that don't. I'm anxious to see the replies as Trip Planning is as fundamental and critical skill as shifting and backing are, yet most schools, being so focused on the student being able to pass the CDL tests (which really don't touch on trip planning) they really don't have time to do much on trip planning. I think this would be a great thread for us to be able to share some experience with new folks with such an important skill that a written forum really can actually be effective in teaching. Shifting and backing; hard to teach from writing how to. Trip Planning you can. Here goes my two cents:

I have a few tools. First and foremost and one that should be the very first purchase of any new person is my Rand McNally Laminated Motor Carrier Atlas (and I get a new one every year as soon as they are published). I can NOT overstress that learning how to MASTER that book should be as much a priority as mastering your physical skills like backing. I also have Qualcomm which I purchase their Navigo Trucking GPS ($2.31/ week), and my company sends me a fuel route (a VERY general route and where they want me to buy my fuel) with my load assignment, and I can request local directions and they will send them (IF they have them in the database) on it. I also have a laptop I tether to my smartphone so as long as I have phone signal - I have internet on my laptop (free in my particular case - it may not be so in yours). I call my GPS Navigator "Nancy" (long story - I'll spare ya).

I get my load assignment and I go ahead and plug the address into the GPS and while Nancy is searching and "thinking", I send the request for the shipper, stops and consignee local directions. That way if I lose signal; I've already got them in the box. Anything sent on the Qualcomm stays in the box even if you lose signal. It's stored in the memory in the box on the truck.

While all that's working I look at the fuel route the company sent me and trace it in my map book on the US page in the front. By this time Nancy has determined her best route and I compare it to the fuel route. Now is the time when experience helps because the fuel route is also just a computer generated VERY general route that the software knows what fuel stops we use and where they are from wherever we told it we were when we sent our last MT call (it has NOTHING to do with GPS it thinks you are wherever you MT'd out even if you are somewhere else), and also neither the fuel routing software nor Nancy have any clue about my load and what are the variables that need to be factored. You want the fastest route if you are using e-logs, which is often not the most direct route. So now I have some decisions to make.

Maybe I agree with one or both of the electronic generated routes, maybe I don't. For example they want me to run US 220 from Roanoke down to I-40 and run that over to Burlington. Well that IS the more direct route but they don't know that with 42K pounds of water and those hills on that route and the towns and slow downs that I'll spend half a day on just that leg shifting 6,7,8,7,6,7,8,7,6,7,8,9! and never even get it in the big hole til I get to I-40. Now if I was light, sure - no problem, but heavy I'm much better off running 81 to 77 and then taking US 52 (which is just like an Interstate the whole way). Yeah it's about 45 miles longer but flatter and no stops so with a heavy load I'll get to Burlington a good 2 hours sooner than if I took the most direct route, plus at the end of the trip I will have driven more miles but burned less fuel because I was in top gear and on cruise the whole way. That is the sort of thing you either have to have experience to know or ask someone that has been there and done that.

In any case once I establish the route I will be taking which honestly is the same as both the fuel route and GPS say about 80% of the time (mostly we all three agree), I WRITE IT DOWN in very large numbers (with my own symbols for the turns and "go to" etc., I've come up with my own personal shorthand) in my - wait for it . . . full size notebook that is ALWAYS on my passenger seat with a pen clipped in it. The I write down my fuel stop and get the true mileage (the paid miles the company told me are the loaded and MT miles, they are ALWAYS short (sometimes only a few, sometimes 20%) - they come from a DIFFERENT software application) from where I'm at from (point A) to point B from Google Maps on my laptop.

I use Google Maps for two purposes: 1. you CAN drag the route lines in Google Maps so that it follows the route YOU want to take and it will give you accurate point to point mileage for YOUR route (divide THAT mileage by 50MPH and that is my ETA and invariably I'm a bit early - which beats the tar outta late. You MIGHT get some growls for being too early but you will ALWAYS get big barks for being late). 2. It has satellite imagery and the coolest thing since cell phone for drivers; STREET VIEW. Although it's not real time, I can't tell you how helpful it has been. No matter how we got our local directions in the past; hunting signs at night and all the different challenges at the "show up point", like the directions taking you to the office - not the truck entrance etc., and looking for signs is a MUST; the fact I can now drop the "Google Man" down to street level and look around where I'm going to and see signs and landmarks LONG before I ever get close (during Trip Planning) has saved me from countless heartaches and aggravations we used to encounter as "just part of the job" before we had this technology. The route mileage I always do, but the street view I only do if I haven't been there before. Oh, plus it gives me a great indication if there's gonna be a place I can park for a break or waiting til they open so I know whether to go ahead and get there early and just wait for them to open or plan it so I'm arriving at or a little after they open because they are small and there's no place to park and wait, or hole up in a truck stop or rest area close to the customer. You get a real good idea if you can park at the customer or have to factor parking and waiting into the trip plan.

Then I write the local directions and phone number of the customer in my BIG (the idea being if I have to look at it driving, it's big enough I can just glance at it and get the info for my next turn) shorthand in my notebook, and the last things I do is turn my Atlas to the front and check for restricted routes and low clearances along the route. Nnever EVER not do that and I don't care which GPS you use; (and understand ANY Google or "app" does NOT know you are in a truck) they will ALL jam you up if you don't check the RM MC Atlas; I have had folks tell me their Rand McNally, Garmin and Cobra TRUCKING GPS have sent them on a route with a low bridge and my Nancy has tried once or twice too - but I checked my Atlas beforehand and didn't take her route. She b!+ched about me being "out of route" til I got back onto her route but I didn't hit the bridge I knew was there but SHE didn't.

Finally, just to say I did it, I run my finger along the route on each state page in the Atlas. Something may jump out at me that is buried in my own memory bank and it also helps me kinda keep a sense of where I'm at during the trip and what's ahead of and behind me as far as towns if I get a flat or whatever. I also check my Pocket Truck Stop Guide for what's on the route too, as over the years I have written MANY hand written notes about all the places I've been and it's very helpful too. My fuel stop might be a Pilot on 75 in TN and I might be considering that as my break spot til I check it in the book and see a note from a while back that says "DON'T PARK THERE. SMALL. TOO TIGHT. IT'S A ZOO, Park @ WM down the street. TP allowed, HH (Huddle House) close."

Now believe it or not, it has taken ten times (or more) longer for me to write all this out than it does for me to actually do it. It usually only takes me about 15 or 20 minutes to do it and sometimes less because I have been there and done that one, a few or many times before so I'm skimming real fast; just going through the motions to CMA (if something did go wrong I really did do all the steps - just fast and more as a confirmation of what I already knew thing than a gaining knowledge thing), so I wouldn't be lying if I had an accident and had to make an official statement or testify. Shame we have to think about that; but the reality is we do. This way they could subpoena my laptop and I always keep my notes and the Qualcomm data is in the server for them to subpoena so I'm covered. I wasn't negligent in my trip planning. There was no way for me to know that whatever was whatever and it was just one of those fluke occurrences.

Like I said; many right ways to do things but this is how an old hand has married modern tools and technology to old school map skills for trip planning. Take what works for you and run with it and leave what doesn't behind and come up with your own personal marriage. No matter what you do, though,; ALWAYS DO THE TRIP PLAN and CYA and above all BE SAFE!!

Let the debate commence.

 

Great posts all!! Keep it going. I didn't even think to mention that I do pull up weather and factor rush hour traffic. Some things you kinda just do without thinking about it. That's why my friend wanted a thread about it. We were talking on the phone when I was posting in another thread. Keep it coming and thanks. Yeah, about sense of direction and plus knowing where you are by paying constant attention to mile markers are great too. Your directions may say "turn left off of 64" but what if you came in from a different direction - take a left and you'll be going the wrong way. You got to have a sense of the compass direction you are traveling and where , where you're going is relative to that! I think: turn N, S, E or W over left or right.

 

Not saying this was or was not the case, but a lot of trainers overshoot the ETA because the student is driving and often times it does take a student/trainee a bit longer to do the trip so they factor that into the ETA when if they had that same load solo they'd give a sooner ETA based on what they could do as opposed to a student. Don't know if that was the case but it might have been. Glad you enjoyed the thread and I had completely forgotten about writing the turns in dry erase on the W/S. Neat trick and good practice for those starting.

Be safe!