Routing and Mapping Software: Showing The Way–And Then Some
Jim Beach
Contributing Editor
In some respects, you're shortchanging routing and mapping packages if you only talk about their abilities to get you from here to there.
Maps with turn-by-turn directions – even those designed for truckers – are available free from a number of web sites, including Newport's own Truckinginfo.com (powered by ProMiles.)
These services do a good job of routing and costing. On the other hand, full-featured, trucking-specific routing and mapping software used by many large carriers can do much more than tell you which highway to take, when to turn left and right and calculate a trip cost.
Many packages are integrated with a carrier's management and dispatching software to not only give drivers detailed driving instructions, but also provide fleets with useful management data and automate many record-keeping tasks.
When tied into a fleet's business management software, some routing packages can become powerful sales and management tools. These packages can calculate miles for billings and settlements, optimize fuel purchases, locate truckstops and fueling sites along the route, record state mileage data for fuel tax reporting, identify truck restrictions or construction along a route and compute lane rate information.
Fuel Optimization Programs
The most recent demand is for fuel optimization programs, says Chris Lee, vice president, ProMiles Software Development Corp. ProMiles now includes a fuel optimization module built into its flagship software and offers a stand-alone fuel program.
"By far over the last year, the most requested item is fuel purchase optimization. The amount of money fleets and owner-operators can save from using a fuel optimization program has grown tremendously," Lee says.
With the ProMiles fuel-optimization module, users enter their fuel network information, mpg, tank capacity, a beginning fuel level and an ending fuel level. "You may want to set the ending fuel level differently in different locations," Lee says. "If you are running to California, for instance, you may want to set your ending fuel level at 100 gallons rather than 40 or 50 gallons so you don't have to buy fuel in California."
The program then looks at the truck's fuel level at any point along the route and suggests where to fuel and how much to buy. "You can optimize retail price or price minus IFTA taxes collected at the pump," Lee says. "If taxes are collected at the pump, a price that appears higher may actually be lower just for the fuel. The system tells you this." The ProMiles fuel product uses fuel price data from a proprietary database of more than 8,000 fuel stops, Lee says.
The company collaborates with fuel card companies, associations and truckstop chains to augment that data. ProMiles recommends its customers download new price data daily.
Jim Ray, president and CEO of RayTrans Distribution Services, owns a trucking company and a brokerage business just south of Chicago. He says ProMiles' fuel program helps him recruit owner-operators.
"We have all owner-operators and it really makes them happy when we can say, 'Hey, why don't you buy fuel here and you can save X amount of money.' It's something that really adds value and helps in our recruiting."
Immediate Fuel Savings
Bernie Hockswender, director of sales for Rand McNally Commercial Transportation, agrees fleets can save money with a fuel optimization program. "The numbers we are talking about in terms of fuel savings are in the neighborhood of $1,000 a year per truck, and those savings are seen immediately upon institution of an optimization program. We believe in the current (fuel price) climate, it's something that will continue to grow and grow."
In answer to this demand, Rand McNally recently introduced a fuel optimization module for its IntelliRoute software called IntelliRoute Fuel.
"A fleet owner or manager can enter in a particular route and then optimize that route with the fuel network they may be using," Hockswender explains. "They can plug in their current discounts and then depending upon the price of fuel and state taxes along the way, the program will optimize the best places for that driver to stop and take on fuel. In some cases, the program may advise them to stop at one location to take on a quarter of a tank and drive to the next fuel stop to fill the tank completely where the fuel is cheaper."
The fuel module comes via a partnership with Integrated Decision Support Corp., Richardson, Texas. IDSC offers an array of IT solutions for truckload carriers including routing, asset tracking, fuel optimization and planning. With IntelliRoute Fuel, users access the data via IDSC's FuelAdvice.com site. IntelliRoute users activate the fuel module from within the software, which takes the user to FuelAdvice.com along with the route information already entered. The web site calculates the route and returns the fuel information for that route. Rand McNally will offer the fuel module to IntelliRoute customers for $9.95 per truck per month.
On The Street Level
While fuel optimization draws plenty of attention when diesel prices top $3 a gallon, users ultimately judge these packages by their mapping and routing capabilities. In that vein, street-level data in these packages often draws some negative user feedback.
Jim Ray, for instance, raves about the capabilities of the leading mapping and routing products. Nonetheless, he has one criticism: "I do want the street level data to get better."
Software providers are responding. ProMiles' Lee says his company has been improving street-level mapping over the last two years by working with Tele Atlas, a digital mapping company that provides maps for Qualcomm, Cingular Wireless, Sprint/Nextel, Verizon, Microsoft and many other navigation-aid providers.
And Rand McNally recently unveiled a new module for its IntelliRoute product called IntelliRoute Streets, according to Hockswender.
"What we've done with this product is take the street-level data we use to produce our print Street Guides and marry it with the highway-level data. That first and last mile are more and more important to fleets all the time."
Hockswender sees the new product as a solution to drivers getting lost once they're off the highway. The Streets add-on requires a license fee, depending upon fleet size, from $1,000 to $5,000.
Beyond Maps And Fuel
Because routing programs deal in the most basic industry currency – miles – they can be tied to a company's main business applications to provide a range of tools beyond plotting a route from point A to point B.
Another module released for the IntelliRoute routing system is IntelliRoute Lane Rates, which returns a calculation of lane rates for an elected route.
"These are a calculation of point-to-point lane rates, anywhere in the country, where you can get an average price for the rates along those lanes," Hockswender says. "If you are planning on bidding on St. Louis to Chicago, for instance, you can look up an index of what those lane rates have been over a period of time."
Lane Rates is also delivered via a partnership with IDSC, he says. "Their data is based on the millions of rate invoices they process as part of their fuel services." Lane Rates is a subscription service that costs $29.95 per month.
Fleets can also use the routing package to do radius searches to determine which available trucks are closest to a customer's location. Brokers can use the mileage packages in matching loads and trucks.
"Being a broker, it is more of a money maker for us than a money saver," says RayTrans Distribution's Jim Ray of his routing and mileage program. Ray has integrated ProMiles mileage and fuel modules into his proprietary dispatching and load-finding software. The combination allows his brokerage operation to "find trucks fast.
"The best way to find trucks fast is to be able to process a ton of data quickly in a way that gives you the most likely carrier to haul a particular lane. We can ... look at DAT's entire available truck database, our company's historical database, all our currently available owner-operator trucks, all our currently available broker trucks, all of our carriers that say what their hub cities are, all of our carrier profiles that say they want to go from this state to that state. From these data sources we can return a query in three seconds and display it in a ranked list to our user."
The mileage program also comes into play in finding loads for the owner-operators who haul for Ray's trucking company. "When an owner-operator calls, we can look at every load that's within a 100-mile radius and we return every single load that's available for his equipment – and we can return that information in a matter of seconds."
Also adding recent improvements to its routing/mileage software was ALK Technologies, which released PC*Miler 20, the company's 20th annual upgrade, in May.
Introduced in 1986, the latest version includes 15,000 more miles than the previous version for 771,000 total miles of truck-specific roadway. The program also includes some 350,000 miles of truck restrictions, such as weight, height and width restrictions and 48- and 53-foot trailer length restrictions.
The newest version gives users the ability to track types of roads traveled – interstate, four-lane, two-lane, etc. Customers can also use PC*Miler Connect to reconcile latitude/longitude sightings generated by a mobile communications or onboard computing system with corresponding points from the PC*Miler database to generate actual driven routes for more accurate billing and settlement.
ALK also released PC*Miler HazMat 20, designed for hazardous materials carriers and shippers. The new release adds routing for Caustic and Flammable categories in addition to General, Explosives, Inhalants and Radioactives. Some bridges allow some hazmat loads but not caustics and flammables, ALK says.
From Computer To Cab
Some fleets transmit routing and mapping instructions to their drivers via the truck's on-board satellite or wireless communications systems. Others e-mail the data to their drivers, who then retrieve it from a laptop or handheld computer.
But not all trucks are equipped with wireless or satellite communications systems. Not all drivers travel with a computer, laptop or hand-held. For many, the information is transmitted by phone (or cell phone, to be more exact). "Right now, the vast majority of our communications is over the phone," Jim Ray says. "We are really hoping to find an in-truck solution, but as they are all owner-operators, it may be a while."
Rand McNally's Hockswender notes that typically, routing and fueling instructions are sent as part of the dispatch process. "They will use their phones, Qualcomm or other communications systems. In some cases, the driver will have his own copy of IntelliRoute in the cab and can run it on their laptop."
That becomes an issue if the software the driver uses is not returning the same routes that dispatch gets. "There are a lot of drivers that have software in their cab," he says. "Often, it's mapping software they bought for $19.95 in a truckstop. Dispatchers want to have more coordination between what they are telling drivers and what the drivers actually do. That's being driven by fuel prices and out-of-route miles, and what I think will happen more and more is that drivers will be mandated to take a specific route and fuel at specific locations."
Mapping and routing software packages, while popular, still haven't toppled the old paper road atlas as a trucker necessity. Rand McNally's Hockswender says the company's Motor Carrier Road Atlas has "95 percent penetration of trucks on the road."
Yet, the software packages offer a number of features the paper atlas can't. Routing and mapping products are "tools designed to make anybody in the transportation business more effective and more efficient," Hockswender says.
And saving even a little bit in fuel costs and time on every load can add up over a year's time.
