Trip planning made easy? need help.

Just let me add one thing.. If you are only doing 500 miles in an 11 hour day with good conditions you might want to press harder on the fuel pedal.

 

I do it and teach it like this:

miles to run/50 round up to next whole hour (so if you came up with 32.2 round up to 33)
this answer is your driving time to reach the destination.

Plan other activities:
fuel = 30 minutes
pre trip = 30 minutes
bathroom breaks = 30 minutes
food stops = 30 minutes
10 hour breaks for every 11 hours of driving (drive time/11)

So for an example:

1500 mile trip / 50 = 30 hours driving
30 hours / 11 = 2 DOT breaks
3 days = 3 pretrips, 3 fuel stops = 6 hours

So based on that information I know it will take me 58 hours to make that trip, now look at my appointment time, is it more than 58 hours out? Yes = I am on time. No = I am late and making a phone call right away.
I like others make food stops either when I get fuel or when I stop for my 10 hour break. I plan for 30 minutes every time I stop so that I build extra time into my trip plan for unforeseen delays. I plan at 50 mph for ease of doing math in my head and to add extra time for those delays. Most times I am early using this method and I can also let the company know when I will be somewhere so they can better plan to utilize me. There are many different ways to trip plan and they all work, you have to find which way works for you.

 

It's one thing to break it down to its essential parts, another to trip plan; scheduling when and where you stop and break. If you don't "manage" your hours, they'll manage you. As a 70 in 8 driver I always tried to log 8.75 hours/day when I could. That way, I never ran out of hours, and when push came to shove I was often the driver with enough hours to take long trips, which led to me getting lots of long trips and preplanned trips of 2 weeks or more duration. That's where you want to be.

So I used MS Streets & Trips to plan my routes/trips. Some driver made a template for it that located just about every truck stop and weigh station and rest area and "unofficial" parking area and wide spot in the road across the lower 48, and I used that to figure out where I could stop and fuel. Easy? No. But if truck driving was easy everyone would be good at it.

Just driving the maximum time/miles every day is a rather coarse method and likely to result in less than optimal results.

I forgot to add: Don't release your brakes unless you're pretty sure you know where you're going to set them again. Figuring it out "on the road" isn't "professional".

 

I do it a little bit different. I take the listed trip miles and multiply by 1.1 to get the maximum miles before you are out-of-route. Any route that you decide on that is on legal roads and not more than the maximum miles is good.
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.To determine how many hours of driving, take the maximum miles and divide by 50. If there is a fractional part of an hour, round up to the next whole number. Now add 1 hour for every time zone you cross going East or subtract 1 hour for every time zone that you cross going West.
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.In general when planning your route, I suggest that you stick to interstates as much as possible and use state routes to connect the interstates. Leave the state and local roads for leaving and arriving at your pickup and delivery points.
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.Another suggestion is to get a "National Truckstop Directory". This book has state maps that marks the location of truckstops which are normally on heavily traveled truck routes. If you are going to go many miles without seeing a truckstop along the way, that is often a signal that your planned route is not so good and you need to look for a better solution.
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.Another suggestion, You want to keep your wheels turning not stopped in a traffic jam. If you approach a large city during rush hour, it can be an advantage to stop and take a long break so that you roll through the city at the end of, or better yet, after rush hour has finished. In other words, be efficient in using your limited hours-of-service.

 

I am a computer depended person. I use CoPilot Truck vers 8 and now upgrading to vers 9 for planning. Contact the people at http://www.dieselboss.com/ If you want to.

I know it is over kill but I like having as much information as I can. Ex Eagle driver and all.

Once, I know exactly how long it should take to get there, I break it down into the amount of driving I want to do. If I am headed home and want to do a reset then I will drive as many hours as I can. If I am just starting out and plan on being out a while, I only drive 8.7 a day. I save all the on duty time I can by going off duty to fuel and such. I know it isn't correct but I do it that way. Paper logs were much easier to use. With the electronic logs, you have to save on duty time and drive time because they do not allow for you to make decisions based upon road conditions. We need more flexibility with those programs.

 

Get the basics down, first. You have a year or two to worry about how pre-planning works.