Truck route friendly mapping software

Microsoft trips and streets. Takes awhile to learn how to use it. Watch a few youtube videos on how too's. Here is a good one to watch and also websearch on how you can send it to your Garmin

 

I use this, have done for years. Turns your laptop into a GPS with their USB reciever and gives you a full 15" screen on your laptop for maps. I still use my Garmin GPS and use this program for planning. $50 for the maps and program, $40 for the receiver which you don't need if you just want to use the maps.

http://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10120&minisite=10020

 

Note that MS Street and trips is NOT meant for truck drivers. It is however, reasonably accurate and cheap, available at WM usually with or without GPS. It is what I use and I like it a lot. I have it sitting on my passenger seat facing me with a board under it (so vents are not blocked) and it works well. Only issue is sometimes sunlight with glare out the screen so I use the curtains to block them out. I can see where I am going because of the larger screen as well as the area around your route which is also sometimes useful. I find a GPS on the dash is distracting and having it on the seat I check it when I am checking my mirrors when I know a turn is coming up, so over as safe if not safer than a dash GPS.

As for MS ST, have to play with the settings to teach it you don't like small roads and are slow for more accurate trip time ETA and routing. For low level bridges, truck routes, etc you need a good, old fashion map, like Rand McNally or such. Even with this, you need (and this applies to every routing software or GPS device) check the route by hand every segment to make sure it does not route you through downtown when there is a bypass and such, or narrow curvy roads when we both know that driving 20 miles more is the better option. Indeed, this is the best thing about using the laptop for route planning, you can take it to to your bunk and play with routes and what-if scenarios, like weather or east vs west bypass etc.

Nice thing about MS ST is that can place pincushions on the map and over time, I have built up a database of pu and del, parking spots, and good places to eat so when I route, I can usually just start and end at my markers and know the route to take. You can even do little things like pace a pincushion at the entrance to a large plant for those places with several entrances off different streets.

 

Can always go to uship and use their zip to zip truck miles.

...pretty sure that's what dispatch does xD

 

I just use maps.google.com to plan the base route. I leave the rest up to the GPS. forget buying software when you don't need to.

 

You can get the Truck Stops Plus add-on for Microsoft trips and streets at http://www.truckstopsplus.com that adds truck routing to it as well as truck related POI's.

 

Clarification here. TS Plus does not add "truck routing" to MS Streets. It is a very comprehensive POI database and a very good thing to have if a driver has a laptop or tablet with MS Streets GPS program on it. It can be used to pre-plan a route on what is thought to be a truck legal route using its built-in geocoded POI's (including restricted routes and low clearances) and hyper-linked internet databases.

But it does not "add truck routing" inherently to the program. But it is a clever and useful add-on to the very popular and inexpensive MS Streets.

 

www.truckmiles.com is a free webaight. and can be used for truck routing.
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