Routing

I know this has been covered before, but it is such a common term that it maxes out the search results before you get to any relevant topics. If there is a good topic on this subject, I suggest that we get it made a sticky.


My routing sucks. Takes me forever and I often end up with less than stellar directions. I run enough stops and miles in a day that I can not afford to be driving in circles without running out of hours, and it has gotten to the point where the difference between a great day and a horrible one has much to do with how well I know where I am going.

I'd appreciate it if someone could walk me through a good way to plan out a route, especially the local stuff because that's what's causing me the most trouble.

 

Ok, so maybe it's not as much me as I thought.

I first get directions from Mapsource on my laptop and compare them to GoogleMaps that I pull up off my phone, as using them together will often give me some additional information. Just got a Rand McNally GPS a couple weeks ago, so I gather up those directions too (this has improved things quite a bit). I compare that to my atlas, and get the main section of the route I need to run.

From where I am at, it's usually pretty simple to get to a main highway. Either I am at one of the few spots I usually pick up a load, so I already know my way out, or if I am somewhere else I can either follow the same route I used to get in and/or I can ask directions at the dock.

Highways and the main routes are easy.

What is killing me are the local directions, getting from the highway to the shipper/receiver.

I use the same stuff that I use for the highways, but I can also pull up directions from the Qualcomm and I commonly call up the receiver for directions. Seems that none of these are ever right. You'd think that with us being a dedicated account that the Qualcomm would be right, but it very often isn't. Then the person answering the phone at the company seems to rarely know correct directions as to how to get to their building, which wouldn't be so bad if they would just say that instead of giving me something incorrect.

I find the place on the first try maybe 3 out of 5 times, but the other two involve me driving in circles, turning around in parking lots, and asking for directions. Might not be a big deal on a typical OTR job, but it's common for me to run 500+ miles in a day with 3-6 stops. This burns up a lot of my time and I've gone over my hours twice in the past month.

Guess I'm doing allright and it's just the nature of the business?