Trip Planning

Describe how to throw a ball.

You'll find there are a whole bunch of steps to a simple process. It takes a bit to get it all, but it's not really that difficult.

 

6 am Tuesday Morning roughly, maybe different if I find something interesting on the way, maybe less if I run a little harder a little longer. Hang loose take it as it goes.

 

Your over thinking it,don't make it more difficult than it needs to be.

 

plan your trip on a 45mph avg. time and distance is everything in this game. so if you have a 467 mile trip. your total drive time is 10 hours and 15 minutes. 30 minutes for pretrip and 30 minutes for a break. 30 mintues for postrip. start time is 9am. end time is 8:45pm.

 

It’ll make more sense when you in a truck and actually have to do it. I’m on the tanker side but same rules still apply assign time values to what you do
Pretrip/Post trip =15 mins
Unload =2 hour (for me depends on product/place) but 2 hours is normal
Driving is to assume 50 mph

Now you have a 14 hour window
11 hours drive time
And can work 8 hours before having to take a 30 min break
You also have to know your body and how you want to run for example say instead of 30 minute breaks you want to take an hour to shower/make a phone call/ rest what ever you need to do. Just account for it

So I’ll give you a simple test to see if you understand
What I want you to do is give me you next available time then give me your clock
So
Nat:
11:
14:
70:
You’re starting with a fresh 70 and already at your trailer. You have a 1400 appointment time. You need to drive 250 miles to the customer for a live unload then another 100 to drop the trailer. What time would you start your day to make it on time? Next available can be used two ways say you need the rest of the day off. You can push your nat out till the morning.
It all depends on how you want to run.

 

you can be onduty pass your 8 hour mark. you just cant drive until you take a 30 min break. so if you drive 7.45 hours to shipper. then load for 2 hours. after your loading is up. you need your 30 min break to drive

 

The Big Orange loves Thelma and Louise roads...
And, for your a Plan A always have a
Plan B

 

I find out ground miles between the two.

Divide that by 35 mph, which is below fleet quota of 50 mph.

I get a appointment that meets the schedule at 35mph overall. Including deadhead to loading and all the other things that goes with the trip.

Then there is this. Sheridan WY about 40 miles to go, another 3 to 4 hours of driving at 10 mph average on split ice. which means you need a complete awareness of winter weather and other weather. I was doing 15 on lockers full when tanker to my right rocky mt doubles was on his right shoulder with one set on pavement more or less. You will find that before we got to that area, many chained trucks were through damaging the ice itself causing the suspension to dance a little more than I like. You cannot always trip plan to cover that.

One of the most stupid loads I had was going to Salinas CA with several dispathers telling us (Team) EMERGENCY must go there NOW. HURRY. etc. words that are only used once every two years or so.

We sit in front of the Americold Docks (There are two next to the door that goe to shipping office) for about 85 hours waiting. We essentially used all of our fuel in both tractor and reefer and were working on getting a local fuel dealer to deliver fuel to us on our credit when the door knock to back in.

That entire week is to stand out as a monument to very bad planning, particular when that place was not far from two seperate FFE Offices with dozens of trailers and drivers all around. a complete a utter futile exercise, we made no money that week. Essentially 0.00 for two people. the entire load took about 135 total hours in 6 days.

Never again. Never never never.

 

People are making it way to complicated. First you need to pick your route. Then you need to get the exact miles for each state you drive in. Then you add them all up and you get the total miles for the trip.

Now you can figure out, just about anything you want to know. Remember these basic numbers you can drive about 550 miles a day. Maybe 600 miles a day because we are running ELDs you have to include real driving times. Let's do 600 miles a day for long haul trucking. 600 miles a day divided by 24 hours in a day is average speed of 25 mph. The 600 and the 25 mph in a 24 hour day is important numbers.

Say you have 1,800 mile trip. You know at 600 miles day day it a 3 day trip. 1,800 miles divided by 25mph tell you almost exactly how may hours it will take you. It tells you how many real hours it take 1,800/25 is 72 hours. Because in 24 hour day you will drive 600 miles, fuel, shower,eat and sleep. That 25 mph includes everything. So it simple to figure out you real driving days or many hours till you can make delivery. If you leave shipper at 1pm you need
3 days or 72 hour to do the run. So you can deliver at 1pm 3 days later

 

Hell just press gas pedal and go . get there when ya get there