I have been a supporter and user of ALK for quite awhile but I have been extremely disappointed in the Co-Pilot product.

First, there are really two functions needed by the average truck driver.

1. A routing program. Trucks need to travel from here to there along the National Network. In general interstates, US Highways and many state highways are a part of the national network. There are prohibited roads that are interstate (I580 in Hayward), US Highways, and many state highways that could get you in serious trouble. You do not want to travel on these roads at all. In addition, many cities have special truck routes that share the same designation as the car route. Such as US Truck Route 51 and just plain ole US 51.

So this program helps you understand the route to get there and what Points of interest are on the way. These points of interest could be scales, truck stops, rest areas, places to get things fixed .. or to the average travel sights to see .. typically a truck driver is not concerned with sights to see ....

2. GPS functionality. This tool has references for the exact location of an address and keeps track of where you are at in relation to the address.

More tools .. traffic, weather, MP3 etc are nice but let us look at the basics.

Rant #1 ... Co-pilot is a truck routing program with a GPS. These are two separate independent tools. You do not think so? Set up a route to somewhere in Downingtown PA near Chestnut street. The routing program will proudly route you along the national network and have you turn on Chestnut ... as you make the turn the GPS program will proudly announce you are about to turn on a prohibited road. :shock:

Routing on the national network does not make a trucking program. The route must understand on a city by city basis especially in new England and the south the city truck routes.

Rant #2 I need to know where scales, truck stops, and rest areas are .. I do not care about schools, government buildings, tourist attractions. But to see these things .. I need to get to a detailed level that presents everything I do not care about.

Rant #3 .. In the newest version two CTD's (Crash to Desktop) reproducible by going back into planning mode while traveling is very annoying.

Rant #4 the interface is not very user friendly. For example, with my Garmin software I can right click on location #1 and location #2 and the program will draw a route. ALK requires only keyboard input unless you have a tablet interface.

So given these constraints and that ALK simply routes the national network and programs in prohibited roads .. then my Bluetooth receiver stopped working .... I programed my Garmin 7200 to avoid all the roads listed in the Commercial Atlas. I am also running the Garmin Laptop software.

I still use ALK to preplan where I will be in 600 miles and sometimes to make sure a fuel stop is close by when the tank is expected to be empty. But I have pretty much stopped using the GPS funtionality.

OK end of rant ..

 

USB extension cable will put it anywhere in the cab you need it to be

 

Actually, CoPilot is billed as capable of doing truck routing, but as Crackaces so clearly laid out, it can?t be relied upon. Which is basically what everyone else told me also when I was deciding which product to buy and most of the people who owned both products, the Alk product and the Microsoft product, recommended to me that I save my money and buy just the Microsoft bundle instead which I did.

But how often do you drive on roads and streets where you have never traveled before? If you are like me it is very seldom and you basically travel on the same roads and along the same routes over and over again. So if you measured the times when you would actually have to pull out the MCRA to confirm if a road or route is truck acceptable or not would be very minimal.

I use MS Streets and Trips and while I may not be picking up and delivering at the same locations over and over again, I am traveling the same roads and routes over and over again. Hence, I am extremely familiar with those roads and routes and so know off hand that they are ok for trucks since I travel them all the time.

In the course of doing my job, I bet I might have to check the MCRA maybe once a month if that much to see if I can pass on a particular road or route. Therefore, not being able to route truck specific routes isn?t as big of an issue as it is made out to be.

Moreover, today most trucking companies supply the route when they send you your fuel stop upon being dispatched. Just compare the route your company sends you to the one that is generated by whatever software you are using and if it varies in any way from the company supplied routing, simply drag the route from where it deviates to where you need it to go.

Furthermore, if you set the parameters correctly from within the software, I bet you that 90 to 95 percent of the time the route generated by the software will be identical to the company-supplied route.

 

Has anybody tried Prophesy Easystreet?
Here's some marketing info I found on them:

Prophesy EasyStreet? calculates turn-by-turn truck-specific directions based on:

Temporary road closures caused by weather, construction, or traffic accidents.
Bridge heights.
One-way streets.
Turn restrictions.
Seasonal road closures.
Favoring left-hand turns.
Avoiding dangerous intersections.
Favoring low-traffic lanes.
Favoring larger roads.
Avoiding truck-restricted roads.
Avoiding low-weight bridges.
Avoiding toll roads.
53? 102? 13?6? 80,000 lbs.
and even provides mileage summaries by state! (IFTA).

 

Here's their web site: http://www.mile.com/software_streetrouter_home.html

I did notice that this isn't a gps program. I also couldn't find any pricing info on their site.

It does look nice though.

 

This sort of demonstrates my point about routing programs vs GPS. Prophesy Easystreet is a routing program. It will provide directions from point 'A' to point 'B' but it does not have indicators of current position in relationship to these points. OK you get all the right directions and you turn on "Easy Street" trying to find 1234 Easy Street .. where is the hell is that consignee ?? A GPS and accurate map data will tell you if you past the consignee or if it still lies ahead. Maybe if you should get out of the truck and start looking around. ..

Now the old timers will say just call the consignee and get directions. Actually I use a routing program, GPS, and I call the consignee. It is an odds kind of thing. Multiple checks and balances that all have to fail for me to get into trouble and get lost.

One downside I see is that the routing program does not have POI's or Points of Interest. I think where to fuel, where to park, where is the nearest place to get something fixed is pretty key.

That does not mean that the routing program always has to have POI's. It just means that one might list all the features they need and then make sure that either the Routing program or the GPS programs has that feature.

 

Actually with the GPS receiver Microsoft is bundling with their 07 versions of Streets and Trips, you don?t even need the cable anymore since it is over 10,000 times more sensitive than the previous GPS receiver it is replacing. You simply plug in the GPS receiver into any available USB port on your computer and leave it there. The unit is so sensitive that it will pickup the GPS signals even in an enclosed room.

 

10x is a lot different than 10,000 times :wink:

BTW) GPS signals are very very high frequency meaning line of sight, and any metal will block as oppose to attrite signals. That is why you want to mount the antenna on the roof as opposed to a windshield mounting. A windshield mounting means that at least 1/2 the satellites will be blocked from view.

The difference will be anywhere 50 - 200 feet of error if you do have 4 or more satellites in view from your windshield and no service if you lose reception of less than 3 satellites.

My mirror mounted GPS antenna gives me less than 1 foot of error using a WAAS error correction protocol. My windshield mount would always lose service in any city setting (buildings blocking reception) hills, or facing certain directions where 4 or more satellites could not be accessed. I have not experienced this problem at all with a mirror mount that can see all parts of the sky.

 

CrackAces -

What Garmin are you using - I have an older color Streetpilot with 128mb card (yes, I download frequently, depending on route) - that has been doing a surprisingly good job (cross referenced with company directions, laptop mapping and MCA) - but am thinking about upgrading -

Thoughts?

Paul

 

Actually, I got the 10,000 times more sensitive figure from several posts that I read on a GPS forum several months ago that was explaining the difference between the older SiRFstar II chip set technology as compared to the newer SiRFstar III chip set technology. I further read those posts several months ago when the SiRFstar III chip set technology was first released. I hadn?t read the Microsoft literature yet and apparently assumed wrong that it would be the same.

Nevertheless, the new SiRFstar III technology still represents a significant advancement in GPS receiver technology and it is my understanding, not from any Microsoft literature that I have read mind you, but from feedback from individuals who have already gotten their hands on the product, that you no longer have to use the supplied cable to receive the satellite signals as in the past. That instead with the increase in sensitivity you can plug the GPS receiver directly into the USB port on your laptop and it will work fine.