Stevens Transport aviary

DMs also don't seem to know how long it takes to get somewhere, or what the chances of finding a parking spot at that time are. He seemed to think that because we had the hours to make it to Holbrook, AZ, we should go that far. That would have put us up against midnight in a town with two truck stops that could very well be full. I got the last space in a rest stop at 10:30 and count myself lucky. Still drove further than my trip plan called for. They gave us this load so late I know they are going to repower it anyway. Besides, @ $350.00 a weekthey can't seriously expect anyone to push the envelope. Or maybe they do. I'm headed to bed.

 

The closest I ever cut it was in Arizona, not far from you actually... a rest area east of Flagstaff around the 235 stick, give or take... thank God there is an auxiliary lot there... I got parked with 3 minutes left on the clock.

 

I don't know about Verizon. I was a beta tester for RMN, so I know their product well. In the last two years Garmin and PC Miler have spent enormous amounts of money to catch up with RMN who set the standards for trucking GPS. Today, these are the big 3 and each has their advantages.
Other companies are 'wanna be's. When all things settle down, I think the two big dogs will be RMN and Garmin.
The biggest problem I see for most 'trucking' GPS is their logic of routing and how they handle feedback to fix problems.
All of the systems have problems. You only improve these these with feedback from the field. Techies sitting at desks can't understand a trucker's needs. They don't think in terms of bad corners, low obstructions, weight restrictions, etc. They take data from highway depts and extrapolate a course of action.
But highway depts are notoriously behind in updating things.
RMN and Garmin are the only two that I know of, that has beta testers in the field giving live feedback.
So as thing shake out, more and more companies will license one of these two companies to their needs and the others will fall by the wayside. Much like happened in the PC market back in the 80's.
After all, how many Tandy Shack, Eagle or Osbornes do we see any more?

 

Operations is always under extreme pressure to get the loads delivered on time. Some push more than others. Kinda like drivers.
Bad decisions only multiply problems until they become critical. It's amazing, the amount of pressure we are under for repowers on sundays. But since most loads deliver mondays, the pressure is only 10% by monday night when I get in. Either the load made it or it didn't.
Everyone is expected to do the impossible, from load planners to drivers.
Again, the biggest eye opener for me coming on the inside is the number of drivers that simply don't do their job.
An example: Saturday, had a load that delivered on monday to Fort Worth. Driver was in Gallup. His hours were marginal. If he busted his butt, he could make it. I found a repower in Albuquerque that had roughly the same miles, but delivered a few hours later. It would work.
Driver refused, saying he could make it and he needed to get home for a dentist appointment in Dallas monday afternoon.
I had to let him be. When I came in sunday, he had shut down in Moriarity, instead of pushing to Tucumcari. It was now mathmatically impossible for him to make on time delivery. When questioned, he simply said he did his best.
We repowered him, but his new load delivered in Amarillo and so we know his next stop was the meat patch.
Monday afternoon when I came it, I had to answer as to what happened. This driver called his DM and a couple other upstring managers complaining he can't make his payments (he's Alliance) because he isn't getting the miles, because we take his loads away.
I talked with his DM to find out this guy dallies quite often, usually at casinos.
But who gets the heat?
We are under instructions to keep this guy moving at nearly all costs.
Imagine what our feelings are towards this guy now? Think we'll go out of our way for him? I could stand to lose a few pounds, but not all out of my butt!

 

That won't route you around low clearances, or keep you on a truck route. I have a Verizon Android phone, and the map is good for using street view to get an idea what the area looks like that you're going to.

 

Kmac, sounds like the same rest area. Meteor crater. I didn't see the auxiliary lot until after I posted.

 

Funny same thing happens to me as well. go through the dispatch que wait on 18 calls then transfered to safety 2 calls then after about 40 mins back up to 27 calls, rinse and repeat 3 times and say to hell with it im rolling regardless of verbal routing talk. WTF would happen if we had an ACTUAL EMERGENCY? They either need to hire more safety personell on the evenings and weekends and the two regulars i talk to do a #### fine job when i can get ahold of them, but they are over worked. or fix this #### phone system

 

New phone system will be active by the month's end. But don't expect it to help anything. While it is touted to improve service, it's there to reduce cost (voice/IP) and monitor call response. Now they will be able to pinpoint the poor schlep that can't answer 27 calls per hour and blame him for his inefficiency, rather than fix the problem.

 

Is very frustrating Emul. they put all these things in place that we are supposed to do and it seems impossible to comply, its cursed if we do cursed if we dont, if we wait on safety for verbal trip plan routing, we run the risk of blowing DLD when given a tight dispatch like I was, if we dont wait on safety we run the risk of getting routed to the yard and having to do grad over again. We wont even discuss that Ive had to boost my minutes to unlimited and the cost incurred for same that I dont get reimbursed for. I had a 500 minute plan for 3 yrs before I came here to stevens, used it for work and personal, now i blow up over 3400 minutes a month on hold for safety,dispatch or breakdown.

 

Once again, drivers that are consistently dilly-dallying on loads and constantly having to be repowered should be allowed to pursue other employment opportunites.