You may plan and improve routes for commercial vehicles with the use of Route4Me commercial routing. Route4Me offers seamless continuity from the time you begin designing a route until the moment the driver completes it by combining route planning, optimization, dispatch, and navigation.
Smaller fleets may be tempted to get around these challenges by using a free route-planning tool like Google Maps. Even though Google Maps and Waze are navigation apps, they are not the best option for finding the most effective truck routes.
The Challenges in Route Planning
Planning routes involves more than just ensuring that vehicles get at their destinations. It’s a difficult procedure with numerous difficulties. Some natural outcomes are possible when truck routes are not optimised:
Failure To Arrive At The Desired Location On Time (Etas)
Poorly planned routes are frequently caused by failing to consider critical delivery process elements such as cargo type, vehicle size, and current weather and road conditions. Failure to account for such issues not only causes delivery delays, but can also lead to missed delivery dates and times.
Increased Fuel Usage
There is a link between a lack of route optimization and greater fuel consumption. Finding the most efficient routes, on the other hand, allows businesses to cut the quantity of fuel spent at each stop by shortening the distance that trucks must drive. Truck idling time may be greatly reduced with the assistance of a realistic route planner.
Reduced Available Capacity
You may make fewer deliveries each day if you do not have the greatest paths between locations. This may lead to situations in which you believe you need more trucks to manage order numbers when, in fact, you need better truck routes.
A truck route planner can help with these concerns. A system that incorporates artificial intelligence, machine learning, and real-time data can assist you in determining the optimal routes, providing exact ETAs, and improving delivery efficiency.
Is Google Maps Useful For Truck Drivers?
Many individuals who drive sometimes use Google Maps to find the most efficient route. However, there is a major difference between driving a truck for a job and driving a vehicle for recreational purposes.
When planning a commercial truck route, you must consider the vehicle’s dimensions, the heights of any overpasses, the widths of the roads, and any other trucking-specific parameters, in addition to the standard driving limits.