Regular Vehicle Navigation vs Commercial Vehicle Navigation – Examples

Due to numerous state regulations, traffic restrictions, and physical road constraints, commercial routing requires a substantially different type of optimization than regular routing. Moreover, contrary to some common knowledge, commercial vehicles don’t necessarily need to be oversized or extremely heavy. Thus, for example, certain vehicles, such as those with more than 2 axles, hazmat restrictions, weight, width, height, bridge, and tunnel avoidance, as well as other Class 1- 8 vehicle restrictions, can be prohibited from using specific roads, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, etc.

In addition to posing a serious danger to public and driver safety, driving commercial vehicles on public roads can also result in large fines and law violations. Taking into account all restrictions of commercial routing, using regular vehicle optimization for commercial vehicles can provide wildly inaccurate travel times and dangerous driving directions.

In order to minimize risks, account for overweights, increase operational efficiency, and avoid fines for using prohibited roads, Route4Me allows you to plan and optimize routes specifically for commercial vehicles. Furthermore, by providing integrated route planning, optimization, dispatch, and navigation, Route4Me helps you to ensure a frictionless continuity from the moment you start planning a route to the moment the driver finishes navigating it.

Examples of Commercial vs Regular Navigation

Since commercial routes must include only commercially approved roads, the distance and travel times of commercial routes, as a rule, are noticeably different than those of the routes for regular vehicles. Moreover, when using the same addresses, in most cases, commercial routes and regular routes will have different stop sequences. Taking into account all restrictions of commercial routing, using “consumer-grade” software for optimizing commercial routes can result in false and dangerous driving directions, as well as inaccurate drive times and distances. For example, the route optimized for a regular car most likely will be more dangerous or even illegal for a heavy-duty straight truck. Below you can find examples of the routes that have identical stops/locations and were first optimized for regular vehicles and then re-optimized for commercial vehicles.

Location – New York, NY, USA | Heavy Duty – 28 Double Trailer

The example below shows the difference between navigation for regular vehicles and commercial vehicles (Route4Me iOS Route Planner). The example below demonstrates how a route that was planned for a regular vehicle was re-optimized into a route for a commercial vehicle and how it affected this route’s total distance, time, navigation directions, stops sequence, and other parameters.

The example below shows how the driving directions on the re-optimized route changed and what roads that could be used by a regular vehicle were avoided for a commercial vehicle (Route4Me Android Route Planner).

Location – Indianapolis, IN, USA | HAZMAT (Flammable) – 53 Semitrailer

Location – Boston, MA, USA | Heavy Duty – 48 Semitrailer