April/May 2008

TruckStops, the routing and scheduling system from MapMechanics, now offers much more detailed support for the limits imposed by the EU's Working Time Directive requirements.

TruckStops 3.1 includes the ability to plan driver breaks on the basis of accumulated driving time. In order to do this it now takes account of two key factors - maximum continuous work time and continuous work break time. The default values for these are six hours and 45 minutes respectively.

To ensure that these limits are observed, TruckStops automatically maintains a correct relationship between drive breaks and work breaks, allocating the appropriate type and duration of break at the correct place in the route.

In a further enhancement, TruckStops can now calculate and report on specific time periods (travel time or time spent at stops, for instance) in much smaller time increments. Where previously it considered time values in whole minutes, it can now work in decimal points of a minute.

These fine gradations of time can become very important on multi-stop work, especially where call points are very close together.