Hi There smart drivers, Rick with Smart Drive Test talking to you today about route
planning. This is particularly relevant to long-haul truck drivers - a little bit to
regional truck drivers, but for the most part it's long-haul truck drivers. First
thing about a route plan - when they give you a destination you figure out how
many miles it is to that destination;
what the range of your vehicle is in terms of the amount of fuel that it carries
and how far you can drive on a tank of fuel. The route plan is always going to
be changing. You're always going to be adjusting it. It's a little bit like when
they launch a missile. The missile just doesn't go from point A to point B
without being adjusted.
They're constantly adjusting that missile to hit the target and it's the
same thing with what you're doing in terms of your route planning. And
communication with dispatch, with your company about your progress from point A
to point B. Next thing - it's about fatigue management, so you can drive the hours of
the day that work best for you in terms of managing your fatigue. As well it
allows you to get into rest areas and into truck stops so that you can get the
amenities that you want, the amenities that you need so that you're comfortable.
If you're in your truck - you're sleeping, you're living in your truck and you know
you can spend some time in the truck stop you can get internet, television - you
know, spend some downtime, get some rest time - maybe go to the movies those types
of things. So all of this is relevant to route planning. Today we're going to do a
route plan.
I've got a case study for you from Phoenix, Arizona to Los Angeles, and then
to Barstow, CA, where you're going to have an overnight rest and then to Las Vegas, Nevada. We're
going to do another two pickups in Las Vegas, Nevada and then you're going to
drive back to Phoenix, Arizona and we're going to show you how to do that route
planning. So we're going to go over the computer,
we're going to do that.
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Hi there smart drivers, Rick with Smart Drive Test at the computer talking to you today
about route planning from Phoenix, Arizona to Los Angeles, California where
you have two drops. You're going to take a break in Barstow, California. We'll show
you how to figure out where you're going to take your break.
And we have two pick ups in Las Vegas, Nevada and then we're going to return to our
home terminal in Phoenix, Arizona. And we're going to show you how to do this
on Google maps. Google maps is one of my favorite tools and gives you some very
precise information and allows you to route plan.
So the first thing that you do is that dispatch is going to give you the
information. Now they may not give you all of this information at once - they may
just dispatch you with a load saying you have two drops in Los Angeles,
California.
When you get to Los Angeles, California, you make your deliveries and they say
okay we may have a load for you in Las Vegas, Nevada and they head you up the
road. Well by the time you get outside of Los Angeles, California, you get through... fight
your way through the traffic and whatnot you know that you're probably going to
make it - you know - where the Flying J is in Barstow. On your way to Nevada, and
you're probably going to have to overnight there.
So the first thing you do is when dispatch gives you the information, you
get on the computer, you plug it into the computer. So you can see over here on the
left that I have plugged in all the information. And for the purposes of our
log book exercise I use Heartland Express - just as an example - in Phoenix,
Nevada. You're going to the Wine Warehouse & here's the address on 6550
East Washington.
You're also going to the Wholesale Produce Market in Los Angeles, California.
You're gonna stop at the Flying J overnight in Barstow, California.
You're going to pick up at Pacific Produce in Las Vegas, Nevada. You're also
going to pick up at the airport, which is the McCarran International Airport in
Las Vegas, Nevada. And then you're going to make the return trip back to your
home terminal. When you put all of that information into Google, down here at the
bottom you can see that it gives you the route
via I 10 - Interstate 10 west. That is approximately nine hundred and forty
three miles. So the first thing you know about 943 miles, is that you know you're going
into Los Angeles, California - you're going to be able to run about 500-550 miles. So
you know this is going to be a two-day trip - so you're going to be gone
overnight.
So you're gonna overnight somewhere outside of Los Angeles. California. You
know that because it's 943 miles, so you know it's going to take you two days.
You're going to be gone two days - that's the first thing you're going to know
because you're going to average about 55 miles an hour on a daily mileage
according to United States rules and regulations. You're going to be able to drive 600-650
miles.
So that's the first thing that you know and then you take the details and you
can click down here on the details and it will give you the details for each
one of your drops. It will show you how long it's going to take you to drive from
Phoenix, Arizona to the Wine Warehouse in Los Angeles, California and that is five
and a half hours. Now what I recommend is that you add about twenty-five percent
on that time for a commercial vehicle - more so if you're heavily loaded at 80,000 thousand
pounds or if you're running through mountains. If you're running through
mountains, it's going to be even longer.
This trip is so six to seven hours. It's probably a good average for how long
it's going to take you to drive from Phoenix, Arizona to the Wine Warehouse.
So you know it's going to take you six to seven hours if you know you don't
want to run into congestion. This is the other thing that you need to think about.
What time in the morning is congestion?
So you probably want to arrive in and around Los Angeles sometimes around
lunchtime. So how are you going to do that, if it takes you seven hours? So at
seven hours, you're probably going to have to be leaving Phoenix, Arizona - and I mean on
the road driving down the interstate at five o'clock in the morning! So how long
is it going to take you to get into the yard and get your truck ready?
Make sure the load's ready - is a load ready - is the trailer sitting there - is it
just backing under and getting going? How long is it going to take you? So is that
going to take you another hour?
So do you need to be into the yard at four o'clock so you can get your truck
ready,
get all your stuff into your truck, hooked onto the trailer and banging down the
road? That will come with experience about how long it takes you to get out
of the yard and actually get on the road
going down the road. Because you want to always give yourself a buffer of time,
even if it's five and a half hours you want to give yourself a 90 minute buffer.
Alright, so from the Wine Warehouse to the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market
Management Office, it's 15 minutes. Again you can allow yourself a buffer of about 45
minutes and it can take you an hour to two hours to unload, depending on the
place that you get into, how long it takes you back in if you've been to this
place before or not been to this place before. If you haven't been into a place
before and you have to figure out how to get into the dock, that can take up a bit
of time. If you've been there before,
you know where to go, you know who to go and see, and you're not sort of wandering
around these places because some of these places can be pretty big. You can
be in any where sort of seven to ten hours by the time you start heading out
of Los Angeles. So you need to look for someplace fairly close outside of Los
Angeles. You know you're on the way to Las Vegas, Nevada here and I just
basically typed Flying J, California into Google and the Flying J - the locations of
the Flying J come up. So the one in Barstow, California and you can see that
it's two hours from Los Angeles, California - where your last drop is - to
the Flying J - so two hours. So if you end up eight - nine hours driving from Phoenix,
Arizona, making your drops in Los Angeles, then you're going to make the Flying J
and you're going to still be within hours of service regulations. You are going
to stay overnight and then you can see that from the map here into Las Vegas,
Nevada is two hours 15 minutes. So depending on whatever time your pickup is in Las
Vegas, Nevada. If your dispatch gives you a pick up time or they start shipping at
seven o'clock in the morning or start shipping at eight o'clock in the
morning and you want to be there for 8 o'clock first thing. Now three hours
probably from the Flying J into Las Vegas, Nevada. If you want to be there
for seven o'clock,
that means you want to leave at four o'clock in the morning. Now can you leave
at four o'clock in the morning?
You started driving the previous morning at 5am - your 14-hour window would put you
to seven o'clock that night. The variable in this run from Phoenix, Arizona to Los
Angeles, California would be your two drops in Los Angeles and
they're probably going to take you an hour each. So that would be two hours. So you'll
still be within your window and you're 11 hours of driving once you've got to
the Flying J. So that means that at seven o'clock at night you would have to take
ten hours off-duty. So that means that the earliest you could drive the next
morning would be at 5am. At 5am you'd still be in the Las Vegas, Nevada by 9am.
And that will give you plenty of time for your two pick ups.
So you couldn't leave at four and you wouldn't be there for seven - you'd be
there between 8-9. Pick up your other drop and then you can see here that it
four hours and 32 minutes probably five and a half - six hours back to your home
terminal. And that's kind of the way that you plan it out in your head. When
dispatch gives you the information that you need to do in terms of doing route
planning. The first thing you do is you look to see how far it is total. You can
see up here on the information that it's 943 miles. If it's a thousand miles
you know it's going to be a two-day trip.
Dispatch is likely only going to give you your first drops into Los Angeles,
California. Once you get there, then you contact them and you say yes
I'm unloaded. They're going to give your next drop or they're going to say, "you
know, we think we got something in Las Vegas.
"Head up the road there." And you know, just stop for the night because you're
out of hours anyway, and we'll confirm it in the morning or whatnot. So you're going to
work with dispatch on this or dispatch's just going to give you the whole trip.
They're going to say, you know, here's your drops, here to pick ups and you know
go and have at er'. Now the other thing you need to consider - is you need
to consider fuel.
This is a thousand miles, so you're probably going to have to get fuel at
some point and the Flying J is probably going to work out for you.
As I said in the introduction, most trucks are either150 gallons,
or 300 gallon tanks and you want to figure it out about six miles to the
gallon.
If you've got a 150 gallon tanks at six miles to the gallon that's 900 miles.
You're going to have to get fuel before you get back or you're just going to be
running in
on fumes. So when you get into the Flying J you probably want to get fuel. If your
company buys it's fuel at the Flying J, you'll have a card. You'll be able to get
in there and get fuel. Most places - most trucking companies - will allow you to
fuel up the Flying J.
So that's the other thing you're going to have to do at the Flying J is get fuel
as well. If you got a truck that's got 300 gallon tanks on it you're going to go 1800
miles. You'll be able to go that whole distance with tanks of fuel as well.
Some of the ways that you can do your route planning and sit down and do that
and that way you're going to be able to get in and out of Los Angeles when
you're not on rush hour. Same thing with Nevada, you're not going to be in rush hour.
Obviously it's not going to be as bad as in Los Angeles, but you're still
going to have rush hour that you need to think about. Get into the Flying J, they
have good amenities.
You know you can get your television, your internet access and you know
contact your family and talk to them and keep your home life going as well. You
know - good food and those types of things. Lots of other things you can get at the
Flying J and probably in Barstow, California if you wanted to that night
go and see a movie or whatnot. But this is just one of the ways that you do
route planning and it will make your trip a lot more successful and a lot
less eventful.
In conclusion, route planning is for fatigue management. We showed you today
in the case study about the trip from Phoenix, Arizona to Los Angeles, California to
Barstow, California - your rest for your overnight rest. Up to Las Vegas, pick up
another trailer picked up a load and then came back to Phoenix, Arizona.
Now we also showed you Google maps. You can drive about 600-650 miles a day
according to United States regulations of driving - 11 hours a day - four hundred miles a day
before you need to take a break
according to United States rules and regulations. That you need to take a break at or
before the eight hour mark of your 11 hours of driving during the day. As well,
you're driving - your 11 hours of driving - has to take place within a 14-hour
window and all of that will determine that you can drive 600 to 650 miles
during the day to keep within rules and regulations of American hours of service.
As well,
the range of your fuel - most trucks as I said - have either 150 gallon
tanks or 300 gallon tank - so most trucks average six miles to the gallon.
That's a good average that'll help you to plan where you need to stop for fuel, how
much fuel you're going to need in the vehicle and whatnot. Because of your
route plan you know you're going to run about 50 55 miles an hour,
so you'll be able to determine where truck stops can be approximately and
you're going to be able to target which truck stop you're going to be in, in terms of
your destination. If you're going into big cities like Los Angeles, you want to
stop on the outskirts and then drive in in the morning because many of these
places in Los Angeles, Chicago & Philadelphia will not have parking
outside of the places that you're going to deliver to.
So you want to stop on the outskirts of town, get up early in the morning and
then if you have a7 a.m. appointment, for example, you get up at five and then make
your way into town and you'll be there first thing when they open. For
long-haul truck drivers crossing the Canadian border, or the American border.
In your case as American drivers or Canadians - you may be driving the border
allow an hour to two hours to be able to do that.
Loading and unloading, allow an hour to two hours to do that as well.
Now you're going to have GPS - don't rely solely on your GPS, especially if it's a
regular GPS - make sure you go over the routes and you write down
in your own handwriting where you're going to be going in terms of route
planning. And then that way it's a little bit in your head - you're not relying
solely on the GPS to get you there, because GPS can unfortunately make us a
little bit lazy.
OK, if you like what you see here subscribe, leave a comment down in the
comment section there,
share the video. All that helps us out. Head over to my website, Get the check
list for route planning
so you can check off the things that you need to do. You can find that over at my
website. Sign up for the email -
all of that will help you out in terms of the route planning, especially if
you're a new driver. And help you get up and down the road as a long-haul truck
driver and manage your fatigue. You can get into the right places and have the
right amenities
so you can watch some television, surf some internet - get in touch with your
family
via social media on the internet and those types of things. All of that will
make you a lot happier on the road.
I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test. Thanks very much for watching - remember, pick the
best answer, not necessarily the right answer.
Have a great day. Bye now.
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and make sure you get into the right of enemies get into the right places so you
have good Amanda me
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