Trip Planning!

Not required by any agency or company that I'm aware of.

Use it before accepting a load, to see if you have enough hours available to safely and legally get the load there on time.

To know how much time the load will take, you'll need to know the mileage (and therefore the route you'll take).

Once you determine that you can do the load legally, then you can go back and figure out fuel stops, places to take DOT breaks, food stops, etc., etc.......

The more familiar you become with a territory or route, the less likely you'll need to trip plan. You'll know where stuff is located and how long it'll take to get there.

Hope this helps.

 

When you run for a company you should plan each trip. After they give you a pre-plan. You need to see if you can run it with the hours you have and del on-time legally. When they disp. you you will get fuel stops and routing. You need to figure out how many miles each day you need to run to make the del on-time. Then look at the map and see where this would put you each day so you can plan where to stop. Some days will be a little shorter then other because of where you will need to stop to be legal and find a place to park. This is trip planning. It lets you be able to tell the company that you can make that run and where you will stop each nite. Also what time you will arrive at the receiver.

 

Here is an example: trip has listed trip miles of 900 miles. You show 5 hours on duty since your last Dot break. Quick look at the road atlas shows you will be traveling East across one time zone.
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listed trip miles is 900 miles
maximum miles before going out of route (900 * 1.1) = 990 miles
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minimum driving time (990 miles/50mph=19.8 hours) rounded up to whole number = 20 hours of driving.
adjustment for crossing 1 time zone going East = +1
Driving time (minimum driving time + adjustment) = 21 hours of driving
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Dot breaks required [(21 + 5)/11 = 2.36] is 2 Dot breaks are required.
[11 is the maximum hours you can drive without a Dot break]
Dot hours required (2 Dot breaks * 10 hrs) is 20 hours for Dot Break
[ Currently each Dot break is 10 hours long]
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Your hours that are REQUIRED for this trip include driving time plus Dot hours (21 +20) is 41 hours.
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This means that you cannot legally do this trip in less than 41 hours.
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You would want to add reasonable time for personal breaks (bathroom, soda,candy bar) plus meals plus showers every X number of hours driving.
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Any route solution that is not more than the maximum miles(in this case 990 miles) and is not a restricted route or have a low clearance is acceptable.
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Personally, my first choice are interstates. My second choice are U.S. highways. If possible I would select a route of interstates and , if necessary, use U.S.highways to connect the interstates. If I have to use local routes to get to the pickup or delivery points then so be it. But I avoid local routes if at all possible.
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NOTE: the adjustment for going East is add 1 hour for each time zone that you cross. Had you been traveling West, you would subtract one hour for each time zone that you would cross.
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The above is just my opinion on how to trip plan. Those members with more experience may give you a different opinion. If I made an error, it was an honest mistake and I did not intentionally mean to mislead you. I did the best that I could.
Good luck.

 

The above is just my opinion on how to trip plan. Those members with more experience may give you a different opinion. If I made an error, it was an honest mistake and I did not intentionally mean to mislead you. I did the best that I could."quote"
#### we need disclaimers in here?

 

I only saw 3 things wrong with your plan.

1: Where did you get those miles? Grab a Rand Mcnally map and calculator. Look at the rout you will be taking. They have red numbers that indicate distends between points and exit numbers on the interstates. Count your miles and you will then know how far it is from a to b.

2: I divide my miles by 60 950/60=15.8 round up 16. then look at how much time you have been give to do the run. you will need one 10 break. So if you p/u on Monday at noon and can run 5 hrs you will be able to del Tuesday evening or Wednesday morn no prob.

3: Never take longer then you need to get there. Shower, meals, etc come out of YOUR 10 break. You get paid by the mile thous time is money. The deferents between a 2500 miles a week driver and a 3000 miles a week driver is the extra time you send bs'ing around.

 

Trip planning is really simple, maybe this can help:

Keep in mind that companies don't give accurate (real miles) dispatched miles. So usually if you add 5% it should be close enough.

If pre-plan shows p/u Monday 1000, miles 750, del Wed 0800. (We sill stay in one time zone) so; add in % difference (10% of 75, so half of that is 37.5 or 40) with this we get approx 800 miles (always round up)

using average overall speed at 50mph..just multiply the hundreds (of your total) by 2.

800 miles= 8x2 this give you 16 hours of DRIVING TIME. 50 is good so get there early is best, don't last minute the deal.

If driving time is over 11, you know you will have to take a 10 hour break so now minimum time is; 16 + 10 = 26 hours to get to receiver, AFTER loading is complete.

Most companies give fuel stops, and routing in the dispatch, so follow their plan.

If trip includes MT miles to p/u location, figure that the same as above..100's times 2 for driving time.

In the back section of the road atlas is major city distances between two cities, also as one poster said, if you look at the atlas, at most any intersection of highways is a red arrow (diamond shape) from that red arrow follow the highway to the next red arrow, in the middle of these two points will be red numbers, that is the distance between the two arrows. Remember mile markers are exit numbers, one and the same, 98% of the time mile markers start south going north (highest number is north) and start west going east (high) (except Georgia..backwards) easiest to remember the opposite of what common speech is, we say east/west..north/south, mile marker go just the opposite. You get distance from mile markers on the maps also. State line to state line

Have I confused you yet...gimme a chance...I can do it!

 

Good post. In addition...

If you are a company driver, your company will more than likely give you a list of fuel stop locations. I use a GPS to get me the distance to a specific truck stop, a fuel stop with good food, a rest/or parking area, or anything else I may need(like the state line out of a communist state). GPS is also useful in figuring mileage and the time needed for multiple stops.

Since I have to log my fueling stops, I have to be particular where I fuel. I know this wont count for most of you, but if you are pulling a permitted, hazmat, or high dollar load, you have to factor in your various restrictions in your trip too. Routing is critical. Go down a restricted road, and you are deadmeat.

 

To Kabar, the 900 miles in my example is the dispatched miles not the actual miles driven. Dispatch provides this number when I am assigned to the load. Multiply the dispatched/listed trip miles by 1.1 is the same thing as calculating the listed trip miles plus an additional 10%. To the other poster, if you prefer to use listed trip miles plus 5%, you could use a calculator and multiply listed trip miles by 1.05 (105%). That is an easy way to figure it when you use a calculator. Maybe someone lurking may find this useful.
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I use 50 mph to determine the hours it will take to drive because it allows time to fuel the truck and additional contingencies like traffic among others. Kind of hard to average 60 mph in a truck. That is just the way I was taught. I have heard that
Transport America , for example, teaches 45 mph to figure the driving time.
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Kabar, taking meals etc out of your 10 hour Dot break allows you quicker delivery times. Okay, fine with me. Let me just ask a simple honest question, how do you log it? Are your log entries more like a summary of the days activities? If you stop for fuel, will your logbook entries match up with time stamps/Qualcomm? My logbook is more log it as it happened style. I got burned once and did not like the result but that is another story. But then again, that is just me.

 

I thought the same thing reading Kabar's post . You won't average 60 m.p.h. in IL or OH or if you have a lot of long grades .
Not sure what you are asking about logging and a summary of activities . This has been discussed several times . FMCSA only requires city and state to be shown at duty status changes . Some carriers may require more but that is their requirement , not FMCSA .