Rand McNally intelliRoute TND 500

BTW as soon as you put truck in front of something or indicate it's for truckers, the price automatically increases dramatically.

 

All GPS units will have problems. This is not to say that the designers are lax or don't care.

The problem is some towns countys etc change load ratings and truck access without doing all the proper paperwork.

I know of several roads in NJ that have speed limits that are lower than those approved by the state. This is not legal but so what else is new?

 

I know of several roads in NJ that have different speed limits on the same section of a road depending on direction of travel.

NJ only has 2 official speed limits: 25 city and 50 rural. Anything else is special.

When I talked to Rand McNally about this unit, there is a function to send updates and corrections to them.

 

The Rand McNally unit inevitably will be like all the other so-called trucking specific GPS devices. That is they will use their good name and reputation to sell you a lemon that doesn't work either and make a bundle of money doing it. I mean everyone else has jumped into the market and made a killing selling junk to truckers. I guess Rand McNally should as well.

If most of you guys did a little research, you'd learn and understand that reliable truck specific routing is beyond the capability of today's technology.

In any event, it doesn't matter how many updates and corrections you send out, unless Rand McNally has a large army of people to cover every nook and cranny of the country, they won't be able to come close to keeping up with all the errors and changes, and if they had a large army of people to handle all the corrections and changes as fast as they came in, they would have to charge $100,000 a unit to make a profit.

Indeed, the very fact that they will have a function for corrections tells you beforehand that they already know that there product will be crap like all the others.

Stick to Streets & Trips and set it up to use only major roads and it will do a better job at truck routing than those GPS devices that do pseudo truck routing at best. Always closely review your routes beforehand so you won't run into any surprises and always make sure they don't have restricted routes and low clearances.

 

They do have a large army to check for them. Us. Corrections could be added by majority alone and it'd be accurate as hell.

 

I got a demo of the Rand McNally unit yesterday. My overall feel of this unit is that RM took a lot of time and were "thinking like a truck driver" when developing it. The features are relevant (for the most part) and are extremely extensive. This unit has several key features that none of the others have and may be going to raise the bar on trucking GPS technology. One disclaimer that I always preach - you early implementers of ANY new technology device are always the "canary in the coal mine." However, as far as the condition of this unit at "launch time" (next week) I have not been more impressed at a first look than this one.

Here's a taste of the features that impressed me so far:

- Big buttons and icons (5" screen)
- Ability to send feedback on roads, truck routes, points of interest directly to RM via computer hookup. (including your reviews of any POI or business that gets pooled and shared with all other users when they connect.)
- Miles driven per state report.
- Hours of Service module. Ability to enter your state of duty (Driving, Off-duty, On-duty) with built in alerts if you go into violation.
- Very thorough truck stop descriptions and filtering. It shows you all info about what is IN each truck stop - not just where it is. You can filter your search by the amenities (i.e. those with a restaurant, Cat Scale, internet, etc.)
- Road construction info built in. It is updated every 2 weeks at RM and will update your unit when you plug in via the lap-link with any construction zone changes. (free)
- Program updates automatically when you plug in via their lap-link (free.) Map data updates will not be free (just like all the competing units.)
- Very professional address book that is storable alphabetically or by number. You can add you own notes to yourself about any address you put there and you can create "categories" in your address book (like a particular warehouse chain, store chain, whatever.)

The true test is truck routing accuracy no matter how fine the interface and features are. RM uses NavTeq maps with an overlay of additional Rand McNally proprietary additional map data and truck restriction data. Their marketing claim is that this system has more miles and more truck attributes than any other system. Our road tests begin next week.

More to come...

 

Is the report truck data feature easy or obvious?
When I talked to them for my order was told that new info or errors could be reported and would be updated regularly.

 

This unit is different... all the testers are truck drivers. The screens that were added on the unit were made to help the truck driver. Testing is ongoing and constant. True all data cannot be correct, but the simple fact that if you find a mistake then by all means try to get it corrected. RM has put that option in. Help your fellow drivers. Why the cost? Simply more data and the search engines have to be more strict to make sure the trucks are routed right. How do I know this? could be I am one of the beta testers... so before the 10/4 gospel goes out... ask your questions and I will be honest in making sure my fellow drivers get the right information. I will not compare to other units. I will give insight only on the TND 500 from RM.

 

Yes. It is both easy and obvious. In fact I found that nearly every screen on this unit can be labeled as "easy and obvious." Here is a picture of what the update connectivity screen looks like. Since new road construction updates are available every 2 weeks, it would make sense to schedule yourself around that same timeframe to "plug-in" and it will not only update your construction info, but it will also check for program and map updates, and send YOUR reviews of POI's and any CHANGE info that YOU want to feed back to RM. If you look at the screenshot you will see the "Update IntelliRoute TND" button in the upper-left.

 

Aaaah. Very interesting. RM told me that they tested these units using about 100 "real" drivers. My initial opinion (as I stated above in this thread) is that RM semed to be "thinking like a truck driver" with this one. Maybe you and the others are why I got this impression huh?

I do, however, conduct product testing and review of ALL of the units (in-house and on the road) and will comment on any of them that I feel a responsible amount of current knowledge on. In fact, I publish a comparison and review chart that gets updated as the new units come out, or the existing brands update their software/hardware. The TND is running through its paces now, and so far, my "first look"post is all I have to say publicly. It is impressive though.

I look forward to your impressions (being as they are likely to be less biased and more accurate) than "marketing literature."

Cheers.


- Don