GPS for Truck Routes

TIS-GmbH — Why Map­Trip is the truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on of the experts. Tele­ma­tics solu­ti­ons with inte­gra­ted truck GPS navigation

We report from TIS GmbH in Bocholt, one of the mar­ket lea­ders for sophi­sti­ca­ted tele­ma­tics pro­jects and what advan­ta­ges they have through the inte­gra­ti­on of Map­Trip GPS navi­ga­ti­on software.

Why experts like TIS GmbH from Bocholt rely on inte­gra­ted GPS navi­ga­ti­on software

Just recent­ly, the com­pa­ny TIS GmbH won the Ger­man Tele­ma­tics Award 2022 for the field “Trans­port Manage­ment”. TIS GmbH, based in Bocholt, is one of the mar­ket lea­ders for sophi­sti­ca­ted tele­ma­tics pro­jects. The com­pa­ny was foun­ded in 1985 and deve­lo­ps intel­li­gent tele­ma­tics solu­ti­ons for the trans­port and logi­stics indu­stry as well as retail chains.

And the com­pa­ny also reli­es on qua­li­ty made in Ger­ma­ny for the truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on soft­ware that is inte­gra­ted into its tele­ma­tics solu­ti­ons. Mar­kus Vin­ke, Mana­ging Direc­tor of TIS GmbH, used Map­Trip as an exam­p­le to explain to us what spe­cial fea­tures they look for when sel­ec­ting their truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on software.

Use truck attributes

The truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on Map­Trip Truck cal­cu­la­tes the best truck rou­tes taking into account the stored vehic­le attri­bu­tes such as length, width, height, weight and takes into account spe­cial fea­tures of the car­go, such as whe­ther hazar­dous goods are loa­ded. If a dri­ver enters a road that is clo­sed for trucks, he also recei­ves a visu­al and acou­stic war­ning signal.

GPS for Truck Routes

Do not save at the wrong end

Free GPS navi­ga­ti­on systems such as Goog­le Maps do not have spe­cial truck rou­ting, nor do they have the opti­on of sto­ring vehic­le pro­files with the indi­vi­du­al vehic­le attri­bu­tes. This means that a 40-ton truck is gui­ded along the same rou­tes as a pas­sen­ger car. In prac­ti­ce, howe­ver, this ends at the latest befo­re the next low bridge, which is actual­ly predictable.

In the mean­ti­me, many for­war­ding com­pa­nies have rea­li­zed that spe­cial truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on saves time and thus money. But the­re is also a wide ran­ge of GPS navi­ga­ti­on providers.

Isn’t a navi­ga­ti­on device with truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on in the cock­pit enough?

Han­ging a navi­ga­ti­on device with a spe­cial truck GPS navi­ga­ti­on in the driver’s cock­pit is alre­a­dy a start. At least the rou­tes are now cal­cu­la­ted with a spe­cial truck pro­fi­le, i.e. on roads that are sui­ta­ble for lar­ge vehicles.

Inve­st­ing money wise­ly: Inte­gra­ted GPS navi­ga­ti­on software

TIS con­trols Map­Trip direct­ly via its own soft­ware TISLOG. Both apps com­mu­ni­ca­te with each other via an inter­face. In this way, the dri­ver and vehic­le are direct­ly inte­gra­ted into the IT infras­truc­tu­re, i.e. into logi­stics pro­ce­s­ses such as order pro­ce­s­sing, goods track­ing and fleet management.

Direct desti­na­ti­on trans­fer from dis­patching — dri­vers no lon­ger type themselves

Dis­patchers have num­e­rous advan­ta­ges with a navi­ga­ti­on system inte­gra­ted into the tele­ma­tics system. For exam­p­le, desti­na­ti­ons can be trans­fer­red direct­ly from the dis­patching depart­ment to the truck navi­ga­ti­on system. As a result, dri­vers no lon­ger have to type in desti­na­ti­ons them­sel­ves and can con­cen­tra­te com­ple­te­ly on the traf­fic and driving.

Accu­ra­te ETA cal­cu­la­ti­on, indi­ca­ti­on of con­ge­sti­on and appro­pria­te re-routing

TIS GmbH cal­cu­la­tes the ETA (Esti­ma­ted Time of Arri­val) on its own servers.

Dis­patchers have an exact plan­ning basis and can query the cal­cu­la­ted time of arri­val (ETA) at any time. This means that you can pro­vi­de infor­ma­ti­on to your cus­to­mers at any time.

The Map­Trip GPS navi­ga­ti­on soft­ware has a par­ti­cu­lar­ly effi­ci­ent way of cal­cu­la­ting con­ge­sti­on avo­id­ance. Real-time traf­fic infor­ma­ti­on is taken into account for all road sec­tions, not just on the actu­al con­ge­sti­on rou­te. This makes it pos­si­ble to cal­cu­la­te the best (= fastest) rou­tes for the respec­ti­ve traf­fic reports, avo­id traf­fic jams and pro­vi­de a much more accu­ra­te arri­val time.

The rou­tes are con­stant­ly checked in order to be able to react to a chan­ged traf­fic situa­ti­on. If a faster rou­te is available, the dri­ver is infor­med accordingly.

GPS for Truck Routes
Inte­gra­ted GPS navi­ga­ti­on soft­ware for a pre­cise plan­ning basis.

Always up-to-date map mate­ri­al and a lar­ge sel­ec­tion for dif­fe­rent regions

As long as the­re is a mobi­le data con­nec­tion, the rou­tes are cal­cu­la­ted online on Map­Trip ser­vers. This enables the inclu­si­on of the exten­si­ve traf­fic data.

The latest map data is always available on the ser­vers. As a result, TIS has to per­form map updates on the devices much less fre­quent­ly, some­ti­mes at gre­at expen­se. The local­ly instal­led data on the end devices is of cour­se always com­pa­ti­ble with the data on the servers.

Only if the­re is no mobi­le data con­nec­tion, the rou­tes are cal­cu­la­ted off­line, with the map data instal­led on the devices.

Show truck parking

Par­king is an important issue for truck dri­vers. That’s why dri­vers espe­ci­al­ly app­re­cia­te the inte­gra­ted truck par­king spaces in the Map­Trip app. With one click, they can view the nea­rest par­king lot along the rou­te or search for par­king spaces and navi­ga­te to them. In terms of color, it is easy to distin­gu­ish in the par­king space dis­play whe­ther it is a simp­le par­king space, a rest area or car yard. The respec­ti­ve com­fort equip­ment of the truck par­king lot is also indi­ca­ted, i.e. whe­ther the­re is a gas sta­ti­on, show­ers or a restaurant.

Clo­se or avo­id roads

The big advan­ta­ge of the inte­gra­ted Map­Trip GPS navi­ga­ti­on soft­ware are the num­e­rous spe­cial func­tions, which are available for an addi­tio­nal charge.

For exam­p­le, roads that should not be tra­ve­led at all or at cer­tain times can be blocked in the map in a web edi­tor. The clo­sures are then auto­ma­ti­cal­ly taken into account in the rou­te cal­cu­la­ti­on and bypassed.

Roads can also be avo­ided. For exam­p­le, if you have loa­ded a fra­gi­le load and want to avo­id a road with many pot­ho­les, you can avo­id it.

Edit truck attri­bu­tes yours­elf in the map

With the Detour func­tion, truck attri­bu­tes such as length, width or ton­na­ge rest­ric­tions that are incor­rect­ly stored or not stored at all on the map can also be edi­ted with one click in the web edi­tor. If a cle­ar­ance height is not stored for a bridge, for exam­p­le, it can be easi­ly added. With the­se addi­tio­nal modu­les, tele­ma­tics pro­vi­ders such as TIS GmbH do not have to wait for the next map release from the map data providers.

Fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on can be found at:

https://www.tis-gmbh.de/en/telematics-products-and-services/software-for-logistics/tisware-selected-software/infoware-maptrip

TIS Tech­ni­sche Infor­ma­ti­ons­sy­ste­me GmbH
Mül­ler-Arm­ack-Str. 8
46397 Bocholt

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