trip planner

NCC-1701 wrote:

Rick Jay wrote:
I can't help with any specific software, although I'd be interested in knowing if any existed as well, BUT, I can add that we average about 50 mph on the road when travelling on highways 60-65 mph. The 50 mph average includes fueling stops, walk the dogs stops, and stretch your legs stops. Sometimes those are combined. We usually don't stop to eat as we have prepared meals we eat while travelling down the road.

You might be able to use the 50 mph as a guide and adjust it accordingly to the speeds and style of travel.

~Rick

I think Rick makes a very good point. Unless the software allowed you to put in YOUR personal average MPH, including the kinds of breaks, fuel stops, etc. that YOU usually take, the output is meaningless since it may not use the parameters that fit your travel style. I know that when I use trip planners, which usually give you an estimate of the TOTAL travel time needed, it's way faster than I would ever make it. In fact, some travel planners I've used literally must assume you always drive the top-end speed limit and NEVER stop...not even to fuel!

With big vehicles and lots of weight, I personally don't like going much more than 60 or 65, and with breaks every couple of hours to stretch my legs and let the dogs "do their thing" I am also at about 50 mph average. So I don't pay any attention to what the trip planner tells me. I just look at the mileage and knowing my average is 50 MPH, just do the calculation myself.

thats the big advantage to streets and trips. it lets you adjust your average speed in town and on the road and put in time between rest stops and rest stop times, and how many hours/day you want to travel, predicting gas stops etc.

After a couple of trips using streets and trips, I have adjusted those setting to our likeings and it is able to very accurately generate a route with timing that matches up very closely with our actual experiebce.