Trip Planning

Topic 1207 | Page 1

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PR aka Road Hog's Comment
member avatar

I'm not in school yet, but I have worked my way through the High Road CDL Training program, and now I want to practice planning out a trip with my new Rand McNally Motor Carrier Atlas. What I am curious about is how many gallons of fuel (on average) a truck will hold, and, on average, what is a realistic number to use for Miles per gallon? I think I've read the 6-7mpg is fairly common, yes?

Finally, I think I've also read that 1500-1800 is a fair number of miles for a newb, and upwards of 2500-300 miles per week for more experienced drivers.

I know it varies from load to load, carrier to carrier, driver to driver and division to division, but, is 600-800 miles a fair number to use for the average load?

Any insight you can give here would be appreciated,

Thanks

Oh, I've looked through my atlas, but can't find where it talks (specifically) about maximum length from kingpin to center tandems. Is that in the front section somewhere?

Thanks again.

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

Tandems:

Tandem Axles

A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".

Tandem:

Tandem Axles

A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".

Brett Aquila's Comment
member avatar

All of your numbers are very good. Vary your length of haul quite a bit to get better practice - anywhere from 200 miles to 2,500 miles. As far as weekly miles I would expect about 1800-2500 miles per week early on as a rookie but it really depends on you as a driver, the company's policies, and your dispatcher. Within a very short time you could start seeing 3000 mile weeks, especially during the busy season which is now through early December.

Fuel mileage - 6-7 is a good estimate.

There's one key question you didn't mention - average miles per hour. I believe Guyjax said he likes to use about 45 miles per hour as an overall average for the load to determine if he'll have enough time to get it there from start to finish with everything considered - stopping for fuel, traffic problems, etc. Your actual driving time you can usually estimate to be around 50-60 mph. Try varying that a little for practice.

Actually, I'm curious about something. I never used an electronic logbook. I'm old school - I always had paper logs. Would someone on electronic logs with the newest Qualcomm systems tell me what data it gives you as far as average miles per hour when you're on line 3? (that's driving time for those who don't know the logbook yet) Does it tell you average speed? Can it be broken down by any sort of interval like hourly, daily, weekly, etc?

Thanks!

Logbook:

A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.

Electronic Logs:

Electronic Onboard Recorder

Electronic Logbook

A device which records the amount of time a vehicle has been driven. If the vehicle is not being driven, the operator will manually input whether or not he/she is on duty or not.

Qualcomm:

Omnitracs (a.k.a. Qualcomm) is a satellite-based messaging system with built-in GPS capabilities built by Qualcomm. It has a small computer screen and keyboard and is tied into the truck’s computer. It allows trucking companies to track where the driver is at, monitor the truck, and send and receive messages with the driver – similar to email.

Dispatcher:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
guyjax(Guy Hodges)'s Comment
member avatar

All of your numbers are very good. Vary your length of haul quite a bit to get better practice - anywhere from 200 miles to 2,500 miles. As far as weekly miles I would expect about 1800-2500 miles per week early on as a rookie but it really depends on you as a driver, the company's policies, and your dispatcher. Within a very short time you could start seeing 3000 mile weeks, especially during the busy season which is now through early December.

Fuel mileage - 6-7 is a good estimate.

There's one key question you didn't mention - average miles per hour. I believe Guyjax said he likes to use about 45 miles per hour as an overall average for the load to determine if he'll have enough time to get it there from start to finish with everything considered - stopping for fuel, traffic problems, etc. Your actual driving time you can usually estimate to be around 50-60 mph. Try varying that a little for practice.

Actually, I'm curious about something. I never used an electronic logbook. I'm old school - I always had paper logs. Would someone on electronic logs with the newest Qualcomm systems tell me what data it gives you as far as average miles per hour when you're on line 3? (that's driving time for those who don't know the logbook yet) Does it tell you average speed? Can it be broken down by any sort of interval like hourly, daily, weekly, etc?

Thanks!

Yes I I did an average of 45 miles per hour for trip planning purposes because that is what my company uses to dispatch its trucks. It tells me a lot and if I know I can make it at 45 mph then I know I have plenty of time to make it at what I actually average which is about 58 to 60 miles per hour.

Brett the elogs I used when I was a lease op with England tells you more info than you want. It tells average speeds as well as actual speeds. On the company side of the company(stuff you DM sees) it will tell exactly what speed you were doing at what times and the distance you traveled at that speed. Along with being a log book it is also a black box recorder and can do a second by second replay at any given time of the day.

Example... Though i only have a qualcom for communication purposes and i am on paper logs about two months ago I had a hard braking incident where I was able to avoid two deer standing in the middle of an off ramp. Of course I had to talk to my DM because it recorded the hard braking. I explained what happened and even down to the detail about I had stooped on the side of the road to calm down cause it had scared me and I had stopped for two minutes. He said it was actually 3.5 minutes I had stopped afterwards which he said was no big deal cause my story matched up to the data he had in the computer. He also said that I had went from 58 mph to 23 mph in 3 secs.

So yes the elogs record everything. The main reason people get into trouble with companies is lying. Its hard to argue against the hard data the computer records. Be honest and be safe while driving and you should not have anything to worry about.

Logbook:

A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.

Elog:

Electronic Onboard Recorder

Electronic Logbook

A device which records the amount of time a vehicle has been driven. If the vehicle is not being driven, the operator will manually input whether or not he/she is on duty or not.

Elogs:

Electronic Onboard Recorder

Electronic Logbook

A device which records the amount of time a vehicle has been driven. If the vehicle is not being driven, the operator will manually input whether or not he/she is on duty or not.

Electronic Logs:

Electronic Onboard Recorder

Electronic Logbook

A device which records the amount of time a vehicle has been driven. If the vehicle is not being driven, the operator will manually input whether or not he/she is on duty or not.

Qualcomm:

Omnitracs (a.k.a. Qualcomm) is a satellite-based messaging system with built-in GPS capabilities built by Qualcomm. It has a small computer screen and keyboard and is tied into the truck’s computer. It allows trucking companies to track where the driver is at, monitor the truck, and send and receive messages with the driver – similar to email.

Dispatcher:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Brett Aquila's Comment
member avatar

Nice! Thanks for all that Guyjax!

Joe S. (a.k.a. The Blue 's Comment
member avatar

I don't know anything about the Qualcomms. We use SAUCOM's in our buses. Our's are not fully "engaged" yet, but will be in the future. We don't use them for log keeping yet.

Everything guyjax said about the Qualcomm is the same with our SAUCOM's. Plus the SAUCOM tells when you took a turn too hard. Shows the "G forces" that the bus took in a curve. During a "panic stop" as they call them.

Buses are mostly automatic, but in some models, the driver can push a button to make it a manual shift but without the clutch. It shows what mod you are operating in. And if you are in the manual mod, it will show your RPM's and if you have ever put any strain on the engine. Either high or low RPM's.

I put this in a post before talking about our SAUCOM's. But while the computers in the trucks won't shut you down if you are over hours, the SAUCOM will. 15 minutes before you time out, you get a posted warning. At 5 minutes, you get a posted plus an audible warning. When your time is up, you better be on the side of the road, in a truck stop, at a rest area, or home, because the bus goes into neutral and low idle. It will not go into gear. It won't increase the RPM's for any reason.

You are more or less dead in the water. The only reason it idles is in case people are on the bus in hot weather or cold weather.

At least that is what we were told when they were first put in the bus. They hammered into us to make sure we kept a close eye on our hours when they were fully put into effect.

I agree with the Qualcomm and SAUCOM system and the reason behind it. But shutting a vehicle down when your time is up, I think, is taking it too far.

Keep it safe out there. Joe S

Qualcomm:

Omnitracs (a.k.a. Qualcomm) is a satellite-based messaging system with built-in GPS capabilities built by Qualcomm. It has a small computer screen and keyboard and is tied into the truck’s computer. It allows trucking companies to track where the driver is at, monitor the truck, and send and receive messages with the driver – similar to email.
PR aka Road Hog's Comment
member avatar

Wow, fantastic information ! Thank you very much for all of that. I took special interest in guyjax story about the deer in the road. It's good to know that dispatch has all the information. Not that I would lie about anything, but just to know it is there.

Brett, I didn't ask about mph as I have done traveling in the past, and know you don't ever get you actual moving time (mph's), and need to include things like stops and traffic etc. Still, I would have just plugged in a number, and knowing that gutjax actually averaged (and uses) 45 mph in his trip planning is reassuring, and excellent for my practice plans. Thank you very much for seeing that omission, and offering that number.

I still would like to know 'roughly' how many gallons of fuel a truck will hold, so that I can plan out fuel stops near major cities, front or back side.

And now that I think about it, I may need to consider fuel usage for overnight idling if my truck does not come with an APU. I think I read a 1/3 - 1/2 g.p.h. somewhere? does that jive?

Thanks again for the info and input

OWI:

Operating While Intoxicated

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

guyjax(Guy Hodges)'s Comment
member avatar

Trucks carry different amounts of fuel when full. I can only carry 160 when full. Some are 200 gallons when full and some are 300 gallons when full. All depends on how big the tanks are. There really in no average. Its all over the place.

PR aka Road Hog's Comment
member avatar

Trucks carry different amounts of fuel when full. I can only carry 160 when full. Some are 200 gallons when full and some are 300 gallons when full. All depends on how big the tanks are. There really in no average. Its all over the place.

Thanks Guyjax, I can work with those numbers.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
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