truck specific gps hardware

guest · Jan 28, 2007

I've done a search here and haven't found an answer yet.
I know nothing about available gps hardware, and from what I gather here on what info is available, copilot 9 truck laptop is the choice for trucker specific gps SOFTWARE at this time.
As far as hardware goes what is the most trucker friendly?
For example, I see posts where a Garmin 330 works great in someone's car. Is there a reason why it would perform differently in a truck besides the severe inconvenience of non-truck friendly routing? Is there a performance factor to be taken into consideration as far as height mounting of the unit? I'm only asking because I don't know.
Big Thanks.

LDB · Jan 28, 2007

Any of the currently available Garmin or Magellan units will theoretically do a good job from a base standpoint. The primary difference is truck routing as you said. For mostly accurate routing as far as clearance issues go the only player is Copilot 9. Unfortunately the C9 maps are incomplete and many addresses you enter will not show up. You can only use an intersection or alternate address on the same road that may or may not be really near where you want. It also mixes up east/west and north/south on a regular basis, especially when you get to many of the loops around major cities. I have C9 and use it because there's nothing else that will work with clearance restrictions. Good luck.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA Life Member 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 5508, 5509, 5641
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guest · Jan 28, 2007

I'm just trying to avoid having the laptop up front with me. What do you use in conjuction with C9 since you find it's main strength is clearances? Thanks much Leo.

LDB · Jan 28, 2007

I have the large print Atlas to refer to and I also have Microsoft Streets and Trips on my pc. Most of the time I've been places already and know when it says take xxx north and my choices are east/west I take the east ramp or whatever the case is. If I'm going somewhere I've never been I see what Microsoft routing is and compare. I also look at the local directions for shipper and consignee in MS. With that I have a pretty good idea of where I need to go in spite of what C9 tells me. So far I've had about 3 or maybe 4 addresses that MS didn't know in over 2 years of using these. In that same time I've had dozens that C9 didn't know. When C9 is clueless I'll use MS to figure out what the closest cross street is from those offered by C9 and choose that one.

It's sent me down a road with 11'6" clearance once as well as taking me through a neighborhood in the dead of winter once. I will say those were both using the prior version C4. I don't know why it went from C4 to C9 unless they didn't want to infringe on Corvette's C5.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA Life Member 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 5508, 5509, 5641
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
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terryandrene · Jan 28, 2007

I can't vouch for the truck friendliness, clearance-wise, of the Garmin dash mounted products, my Garmin c340 has features that differentiate car, truck, motorcycle, toll, bus and non-paved routes. When in auto mode, foe example, I am routed to parkways. When in truck mode, I am routed around parkways. Perhaps a query to Garmin will resolve the clearance question.

LDB · Jan 28, 2007

I inquired and received a reply as follows.

My job requires routing that follows truck friendly routes, specifically no less than 13'6" clearances and an on/off switch for hazmat routing. I know many other drivers who want/need the same thing. What would it take to provide that capability in the 7200/7500 or some other model?

Thank you for contacting Garmin.

It is likely a matter of data availability with attribution for the purpose. The City Navigator maps have a little of it (in big cities no trucks allowed signs). But we do not have anything now that caters perfectly to it. I hope that changes someday. As far as I know NavTeq and the other vendors do not have that data at this moment in vector, routable data.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA Life Member 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 5508, 5509, 5641
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
EO Forum Moderator
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RLENT · Jan 29, 2007

Leo,

Curious about when you got that reply from Garmin ? I don't know that anything has necessarily changed ..... but they did release City Navigator NT version 8 within the last 6 months or so so it's possible that it might have.

In any event it sounds like NavTeq would really be the horse's mouth on what data is actually available so to speak.

I haven't researched it on NavTeq's website (I'm only in a little 8' 6" van) but I found it somewhat irrating that Garmin's manual for the 7200 never really defines what the differences are between the various routing modes are. Ya would think that they could at least give it a few words.

LDB · Jan 29, 2007

That was sent to me on 12/20/06 so it's only a month old. I can't imagine them not selling at least 10,000 units considering there are millions of professional drivers and at least a few hundred thousand who must be O/O's. Maybe that's not enough additional sales to pursue the features but I'd sure buy one if they did.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA Life Member 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 5508, 5509, 5641
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
EO Forum Moderator
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Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.

RLENT · Jan 31, 2007

Leo,

Yup it can't get much more current than that. It looks to me like Garmin does make some effort in that they at least provide for truck routing. It could be like who answered your question said - the source data from NavTeq is not yet available .... they do claim their data set includes up to 204 attributes:

http://www.navteq.com/about/whatis.html

Unfortunately I couldn't find a listing of what they actually are ......

Even if the data were available from NavTeg, there's still the issue of how Garmin would design an implementation and program it into the units. Mebbe one of these days .....

Turtle · Feb 3, 2007

People often confuse the small Garmin units with the larger dash mounted units. And it's probably because Garmin advertises the larger units for use in trucks and RV's. It is because of the larger screen size that the larger units are more often used in trucks and RV's, because they are usually mounted further away from the driver. It's not because they have special routing for trucks.

If you have a Garmin with, say, version 8 of the software, then you'll get exactly the same routing regardless of which Garmin model you have. In the Navigation setup you select the vehicle type, be it truck, car, emergency, taxi, bus, whatever, and in conjunction with the Faster Time or Shorter Distance and with the various Avoidances that can be set, it will route you accordingly.

As has been stated, the Garmin (Navteq) mapping for trucks leave a little bit to be desired when it comes to truck routes. It knows some of the restrictions on some of the bridges and tunnels, and it won't re-route to via a U-Turn, but it's not very good when it comes to many truck restricted roads, bridge heights, HAZMAT routing, things like that. Co-Pilot or PC Miler (with HAZMAT and Bridges) do a much better job with that.

It's a little surprising that Navteq, or certainly Garmin strongly prodding Navteq to do so, hasn't incorporated the bridges and HAZMAT routing. Seems like this kind of thing would be a must-have for a GPS unit manufacturer like Garmin in trying to jump the gun on Qualcomm. You can go buy a "pilot" atlas that lists the height restrictions of 99% of the bridges in the US and Canada, and HAZMAT restrictions and designations are available from the FMSCA's National Hazardous Materials Route Registry (NHMRR) at http://hazmat.fmcsa.dot.gov/nhmrr/index.asp

RLENT · Feb 5, 2007

I have an email into Linda Dove @ NavTeq querying whether any of the 204 attributes that comprise the NavTeq data set are clearance heights, and if not, are they planning to incorporate it at some future date. If I get an answer back on that I'll ask about HazMat.