In The News

More truckers steer by GPS to save on fuel, time

CINCINNATI — Chuck Kraft ignores the feminine voice enunciating objections as he steers his orange and white tractor-trailer into a diesel fueling station, away from the span of Interstate 71 he's supposed to be traveling.

"Recalculating," she says. "Turn Left. Recalculating."

His guide sounds obstinate, smart and occasionally like a pain in the neck. But she also can be terribly helpful, and the 48-year-old truck driver — like an increasing number of his colleagues — has become dependent on the voice that emanates from a satellite navigation screen on his dashboard.

Trucking and navigation industry representatives say the market for global positioning systems in trucks is climbing as drivers work to trim miles to beat high fuel prices and tighter shipping demands. Commercial truckers who have used GPS for years to track loads or predetermine routes now say they use it as real-time, turn-by-turn navigation to make themselves safer and more efficient.

"Any savings you can get right now, you take it," said GPS user Scott Kent, 49, who had just filled his tank for $4.43 a gallon at a diesel station in southwest Ohio. Diesel fuel prices this summer peaked at $4.76 but have dropped to $4.12, compared with $2.89 at the same time last year.

No agency formally tracks the number of truckers using navigational GPS, and manufacturers are reluctant to release sales data. But other signs point to the increase.

The devices are multiplying on truck stop shelves across the nation.

At Barjan, a Rock Island, Ill., company that provides traveler merchandise to about 3,600 convenience stops, sales of personal navigation devices, software and accessories doubled from 2006 to 2007, said Scott Turner, the company's products manager for professional electronics. As of July, year-to-date sales were four times what they were last year.

Trucking companies are also eyeing the devices for mass implementation.

Schneider International, one of the largest U.S. commercial trucking fleets, hopes to equip its fleet with truck-specific GPS during the next few years, spokeswoman Erin Elliott said. She said many Schneider truckers already buy their own GPS units.

That's happening more frequently with the development of less expensive technology and truck-specific products, said Jim Tipka, vice president of engineering for the American Trucking Associations, a trade federation. Satellite navigation units range from $150 to $1,000 or more, depending on the type of software and the hardware used to run it.

In recent years, digital mapping powerhouses such as Navteq Corp. and Tele Atlas have started to collect more bridge clearances, road slopes and other truck-specific data. A handful of routing software and GPS manufacturers parlayed that information into trucking-targeted products.

Boston-based TeleType Co. makes several truck navigating devices, and ALK Technologies of Princeton, N.J., and The Truckers Helper in Melbourne, Fla., developed navigational software for in-cab laptops or handheld communication devices.

A few drivers have become entrepreneurial, using the citizens band radio to advertise bootlegged copies of the truck-specific products, Kent said.

But some truckers are just happy to have directions and estimated arrival times at their fingertips with more general devices.

"I can't truck without it now," said Kraft, who has nearly three decades behind the wheel. "And believe me, I know the roads."

On routes for Bardstown, Ky.-based Trade Winds Transit Inc., Kraft follows a Garmin model that would be equally useful in some mom's minivan. He types an address, and his GPS bounces a signal among several of two dozen GPS satellites to determine his location and destination. It filters that data through mapping software within seconds to produce turn-by-turn directions.

"Bloop," he said, tapping the touch-screen and mimicking its beep, "and I'm telling them when I'm gonna be there. Now that is sweet."

If he strays from the planned path, it will recalculate a new route.

The military developed the satellite navigation program in the 1970s and initially made the signals for civilian devices more ambiguous for security reasons. Today, GPS has a variety of tracking and navigation uses, from emergency alert systems to animal migration studies.

Drivers like Kraft, who hauls rigs all over the Northeast, say GPS has taken the guesswork out of navigating unfamiliar territory on irregular routes.

"The difference is like night and day compared to a paper map," said Bob Maleschusky, 47, an Oklahoma City driver for U.S. Xpress

The Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company has integrated navigational GPS into onboard communications systems for about half of its 9,000 drivers, a popular addition.

Drivers accustomed to GPS aren't happy if they're put in a truck without the device, CEO Max Fuller said. "In fact, we've even had a few threaten to quit."

But the gadgets aren't foolproof. GPS devices have gotten trucks stuck at a closed gate in Secaucus, N.J., and on the narrow Smugglers' Notch mountain pass in northern Vermont.

In England and Wales, satellite-guided drivers have damaged buildings and blocked narrow lanes At least one village reportedly posted signs showing a satellite and a truck with a line through it, and others were considering it.

In the U.S. and abroad, truckers commenting on online forums lament being led toward ditches, low overpasses and nonexistent roads by GPS systems that run on old data or aren't truck-specific.

And that's why most GPS-led truckers keep a paper map and consider the GPS only one of many driving tools.

"It becomes a part of your scan," said Dave McDonald, a 53-year-old driver from Mankato, Minn., who bought a GPS when he started trucking this summer for Werner Enterprises out of Omaha, Neb. "You know? You're checking your speed. You're checking your mirrors. You're checking your GPS."

McDonald said truckers' increasing use of GPS benefits everyone on the road by giving drivers more time to react to lane changes, blocked routes and other traffic problems and, at night, by foreshadowing the road farther than the headlights reach.

But it raises safety concerns for regulators. A safety task force for the American Trucking Associations is debating the safest devices — those that map truck-safe routes and distract drivers the least — and the best recommendations for regulating GPS use.

Increasing GPS popularity also caught the attention of the Federal Highway Administration, which is most concerned with reminding truckers and all motorists to program the devices before they drive, instead of taking their eyes off the road to make adjustments, FHA spokesman Doug Hecox said.

In that vein, truckers say they feel the same.

"You're not a hazard when you're not distracted," Maleschusky, the Oklahoma City driver, said. "So anything that keeps your attention to the road is a plus for everybody."