The combination of smart phones and the internet have revolutionized the trucking industry. Gone are the days of having to find a fax machine to send paperwork to the customs broker, keeping track of distance traveled and fuel purchased in each state or province, keeping track of how long you were delayed at a customer, guessing the weather and road conditions ahead, etc. This is now easily accomplished with a few clicks in your smart phone. But which apps should you have? Unless you have a high capacity phone, 128GB or better, you probably won’t have the storage for all the apps, so you’ll need to prioritize which ones you need and use the most.
In no particular order, you should have:
- Google or Apple maps or Waze
- A weather app, such as The Weather Network
- Highway condition apps for the areas you travel most.
- Truck stop apps (Pilot, Loves, Petro-Pass, etc.). Great to start the fuel pumps, reserve parking and showers, and to collect and store points for use in the store.
- Trucker’s Path. Shows routings, traffic congestion, scale and rest area locations.
- Truck stop directory. Lists all the truck stops, with all the amenities they offer.
- Customs broker apps. Easily check the status of your customs clearance.
- Any apps your company uses, such as Load Docs or Vector.
There are countless useful apps, so make sure you have the ones most relevant for your own needs. You can even adapt some generic apps to suit your needs. Like using a spreadsheet to calculate your logbook recap hours in both Canada and the US for easy reviewing when being dispatched on a cross border load.
