Effective trip planning is essential for truck driver safety and job satisfaction. It allows them to safely maximize earnings within the daily limits for on-duty and drive time, which are 14 and 11 hours, respectively.
However, trip planning for 18-wheels of commerce is more complex than tapping a destination on Google Maps and following the prescribed route on a smartphone. Truck drivers must consider myriad factors besides the shortest distance or fastest travel time between two points.
Drivers must also evaluate available service hours, approved fuel stops and fuel prices, parking availability, and truck-safe routes, among other variables, to reach their destinations safely and on time. In this article, we show how fleets can give drivers access to all the information and tools they need to effectively pre-plan trips in one convenient place—a custom mobile driver app.
Overcoming Trip Planning Challenges with a Custom App
Deploying a custom mobile driver app with powerful trip-planning tools allows drivers to complete non-driving tasks from anywhere—on any device—inside or outside the cab. This mobile convenience and flexibility will help drivers maximize available on-duty and drive time better.
Below are three trip-planning features in a custom app that are proven to be most beneficial to fleets and drivers:
1. Hours-of-Service Visibility. Custom apps with advanced trip planning functionality can overlay hours of service data directly on a map. This allows drivers to visualize their remaining drive time along their chosen route and plan fuel and rest stops accordingly. This visibility comes from integrations with electronic logging devices (ELDs) and helps with hours-of-service compliance to minimize violations, keep drivers moving safely, and maximize their productivity.
2. Fuel Savings: According to 2024 SONAR data, fuel now costs 63 cents per mile, up from 48 cents in 2021, accounting for a more significant portion of operating costs. A custom app that provides drivers with tools to plan fuel stops strategically will consider factors such as a fleet’s negotiated discounts and price by location to optimize routes for fuel efficiency.
Integrating fuel pricing data and route planning features enables a custom app to identify the most cost-effective fuel stops. Moreover, fleets can set maximum limits for out-of-route miles and toll costs, ensuring drivers adhere to company policies and minimize unnecessary expenses.
The nation’s largest truckload carrier, Knight-Swift, realizes significant fuel efficiencies with a custom driver app from Eleos Technologies. Its custom app has an intelligent trip planner that helps drivers choose route options that satisfy company policies for in-network fueling, out-of-route mileage, and compliance with hours-of-service (HOS) rules. The fleet has seen improvements in fuel costs, driver route compliance, and driver satisfaction through these tools.
3. Rest Stops/Parking Availability: Finding suitable parking spots for rest and sleeping breaks is challenging for truck drivers, especially during peak hours when truck stops fill up quickly. Custom apps equipped with parking availability features can help drivers plan rest stops in advance, reducing driver frustration, lowering the risk of parking violations, and ensuring compliance with hours of service regulations.
By providing real-time information on parking availability and allowing drivers to reserve parking spots in advance, custom apps can alleviate the stress of finding parking, allowing drivers to focus on their routes and deliveries. Integration with navigation systems also ensures seamless, truck-safe routing to designated parking facilities.
The Eleos Advantage
Eleos Technologies offers a comprehensive trip-planning solution through its custom driver app platform. With the Eleos Platform, drivers can efficiently organize trip details and execute according to their plan to maximize their earnings while saving time, mileage, and fuel.
The cloud-based Eleos Trip Planner gives drivers essential tools to organize and pre-plan trips from anywhere, any time, on any device.
With the app, drivers can:
- Review load information, including stops, total mileage, delivery windows, etc.
- Study any special instructions or safety videos related to the load.
- Use satellite imagery to inspect facility locations and view other drivers’ recommendations on location accuracy.
- Track HOS and plan accordingly.
- Find fuel stops relative to weigh stations to reduce the potential for over-fueling.
- Discover and add essential points of interest as stops along the route.
- View weather forecasts, live traffic incidents, and congestion.
- Much more!
The Eleos Trip Planner is proven to cut drivers’ trip planning to as little as 15 minutes per day, getting them back on the road faster to maximize drive time – and revenue. In addition, trip planning greatly reduces driver frustration, giving them more control and reducing the number of surprises that can occur along the way.
The Eleos platform also empowers drivers to contribute to the accuracy of facility location data with an innovative crowdsourcing solution. Drivers can adjust and confirm entry and exit points at facility locations. Fleets benefit from improved navigation accuracy and increased driver satisfaction. For example, a driver can pin the driveway for a location’s warehouse, and the app will update navigation to direct all future loads to that point instead of a location’s main entrance.
With Eleos, fleets can confidently navigate the complexities of trip planning to boost driver performance, productivity, and job satisfaction. Schedule your personalized demo to discover how you can use your Eleos custom driver app to improve the management of hours of service, fuel stops, available parking, and much more.
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