Introduction

Drivers sometimes experience navigation issues within the Eleos Application.  When a driver reports these issues, use this guide to take troubleshooting steps to try to determine if a navigation issue occurred.  After taking these steps, if you determine that it is a legitimate navigation issue that may need to be reported to Eleos and their navigation provider HERE, then you can contact ASR Support. Provide details about the issue so that ASR Support can verify and submit a ticket to Eleos if needed. Please note ASR is not able to speak with 100% certainty for output of products that we do not control. We can only provide other details to companies to make a more educated conclusion.


Some clients have the Report Navigation ToDo Form enabled, which means that they will receive a report from a driver who completes a ToDo for a reported issue. If you do not have this enabled, we recommend that you read about it in our article, Eleos – Report Navigation ToDo Form and provide an email address in order to receive the reports.  The report will provide more information whenever a driver fills out the ToDo, with metadata useful to investigating the issue.  If you are interested in having this enabled, please submit a ticket request to our support ticketing system.


The following are common navigation issues that drivers have reported in the past:

  • The driver was routed down a no truck road or in an area with height, weight, length, etc. restrictions.
  • Navigation is Unable to Route to Stop.
  • The driver was routed to an incorrect location, a different latitude/longitude than the stop.


If you have Trip Planner Studio enabled in Drive Axle, Trip Planner Studio can be used to gather more information to decide why a suggested route might have occurred. The following are possible reasons:

  • The driver was rerouting until the navigation could not compute.
  • The driver may have ignored the navigation or missed a turn.
  • The HERE suggested navigation incorrect.
  • Latitude and Longitude for the stop was incorrect.
  • Location would require clearance with local ordinances.


The following sections go into detail about steps that clients can take to research these navigation issues internally.


Trip Planner Studio (TPS) Research Process

In Drive Axle there is a section called Trip Planner Studio. There you can search Trip Plans for the most recent version within the retention policy, which is useful for finding the suggested route. Trip plans show routes that were suggested to the driver by the navigation provider, as well as what time a route was recomputed. It is important to understand that TPS is only showing suggested routes, not the actual route that the driver took, as this is not a telematics product. If TPS is enabled and your Drive Axle User account has permission to access TPS, then you can proceed here:  https://dashboard.driveaxleapp.com/platform/planner    


This section walks through the steps to research navigation in Trip Planner Studio.

  1. Get the information needed to investigate the issue.
         You will need the load, the driverID, the date/time, and the location where the navigation issue occurred.
    1. If the driver completed a Eleos – Report Navigation ToDo Form all this information will be captured in the report.  
    2. The date/time is helpful to narrow down the window where an issue occurred, to try to verify the route that was suggested to the driver at that time. You can use this information to find a more accurate time stamp of the issue in TPS.
    3. The location of the issue is also important to know which part of the trip/route needs to be reviewed.  It is also wise to get the latitude/longitude of the location of the stop/routing issue.   This way if it seems that a driver was routed to an incorrect location, you can compare the lat/long in your TMS master data to the lat/long of the location the driver was routed to (in Trip Planner Studio) as well as the actual location of the stop.


2. Search for Driver and Load number in Trip Plans.
Fill in driverID (without tenant prefix) and/or Load number parameters in the “Search Trip Plans” fields (left screenshot below). You do not have to enter both to search for Trip Plans, but by entering both, it will narrow down the search. If you are having trouble finding Trip Plans for a particular load, it may be easier to search just for the driverID and then find the Load in the results (right screenshot below).



Note that the displayed numbers in the search results could be an Order, Leg, or Move number, and some customers format their load numbers in TPS with leading and/or trailing numbers, which makes it more difficult to search by or find them at times; you may need to find the pertinent entry by the time window provided.


3. Select the proper Load from the results.
TPS will show stops on the left side of the screen. The panel contains Load information, each stop, the route options, and the number of routes that were suggested to the driver. The map on the right shows each stop as a pin and what truck restrictions are on roads. The red lines are restricted, the blue line shows the suggested route to get to the next stop. The ‘wheel’ in the bottom of the left-hand panel allows you to click between recomputed suggestions for the route, which can be impacted by traffic, departure, weather, and time. Below is a screenshot of the TPS map, please see the Restrictions Key for more information about what each symbol shows. 


4. Review the area around the stop where the navigation issue occurred.
When you select a stop on the left side, it will zoom to the pin on the map on the right for the stop, and it will highlight the pin to show which stop was selected.


In TPS the blue line highlights the suggested route, as shown by the screenshot above, although the blue line may look a little obscured because it is going through areas that are red for certain restrictions and also the highway, which shows as a pinkish-red on the map.


If you notice the driver was routed to the incorrect location, you should confirm the latitude/longitude in your TMW master data. Eleos uses lat/longs to determine the location of a stop and route the driver to it, so incorrect lat/longs in your TMS could be a reason for incorrect stop locations. If drivers are reporting having issues navigating to stops that they regularly take this is a strong indicator that the lat/longs could have been changed in master data.


5. Zoom in on the specific area along the route that was reported as a concern.
Certain details/restrictions may not be visible if your view is too broad (i.e., small/narrow streets and alleys, restrictions on shoulders and side roads which may not show or may appear as being on the main road). If the driver is unable to route to the stop, then it is likely that the navigation is having trouble routing the driver because the stop is surrounded by truck restricted roads. For example, the driver hits the “Route to Stop” button, and they receive an error message that says that the navigation is unable to compute route distance and time, and warnings about restrictions on legs of the trip.  This can occur when the stop appears to be only accessible by truck restricted roads, making it hard for the navigation to find a suitable route, resulting in error.



If the driver had issues being routed to their stop, zoom in on the area and review the restrictions on the roads surrounding it. In the screenshot below, you can see that there are truck restrictions on all the entrances surrounding the stop. In this case, the company/driver may need a special clearance/permission from the local ordinance to get to the stop.

 


6. Look through the routes that were generated for the driver.
 On the bottom left of the Trip Planner Studio screen, you will see see the route generation and if the route was recomputed and recalculated at any point. The number in the bubble shows how many times the route was recalculated, and clicking on it, brings up a list of each route calculation.



Click on one of the routes from this list that was generated around the time the issue occurred. This will show the route (blue line) suggested to the driver, you can use the arrow next to the selected route to view the routes that were suggested before and after the time of the issue and note if there were any changes. You can also view the original trip plan to confirm if the driver was routed down that area originally.


When that route was generated:
If there were recalculations:


In Version 1.55 Trip Planner Studio has been enhanced to make it easier for you to differentiate, at-a-glance, whether a historical snapshot is planning-related or navigation-related. Planning snapshots will feature the current purple header; navigation snapshots will now display with a green header (screenshots below).



 Driver Initiated Re-Route and Route Recomputed for New departure time are common route labels in Trip Planner Studio:

  

Driver Initiated Reroute – this means that the driver hits the “Route to Stop” button within the application to get rerouted. Sometimes drivers are prompted to re-route when there is a warning in the navigation. If you click on one of the routes from the list, and the re-route was initiated by the driver, then the banner at the top of the screen will be green when viewing that route.  In addition to the time of reroute, Trip Planner Studio also shows the driver’s location at the time they initiated the reroute with an orange point on the map, as shown by the screenshot below.

 

Route Recomputed for New Departure Time – This means that the system generated another route for the driver because of a missed turn, traffic, leaving the stop later, etc.  If you click on one of the routes from the list, and the route was Recomputed for New Departure Time for one of these reasons, then the banner at the top of the screen will be purple when viewing that route, unless the route was recomputed because the driver initiated a reroute, in which case both labels would display on the route and the green banner would show. 

   

Often when we see a series of recalculations this could mean the driver is not following the suggested route, there was traffic and suggestions along the route, use of other route to stop points could had been added by the driver, there may have been a delay in when they left their original departure from stops, etc. Too many reroutes is one reason you may see the “Unknown Distance and Duration” error message at the top right of the TPS screen.  


7. View route options for the driver.
The route options show what was set for height, weight, and length in the integration, but this does not prevent the driver from making changes to the route options via the screen in the application. There is no way to see in Drive Axle if a driver made changes to the route options. You can view the route options that were set for the load by clicking the Route Options button under each stop of the load in Trip Planner Studio. 




When clicking the Route options, you can see that there are options for Vehicle, Hazmat, and Avoids, and the leg will be displayed at the top of the route options. 


The Vehicle and Avoids options are the ones that can be important to look at, depending on the specific navigation issue. The values specified for the Vehicle and whether an Avoid is checked in route options can help you provide reason as to why a driver was or was not routed down a certain road. If a driver needs to make changes to their route options, they can follow the instructions to do so in the “Navigation in Loads” section of Eleos - Using Loads in the Eleos Application.  


 


Eleos specifies that the Vehicle Length parameter is the total length of the truck and trailer from tip to tail. Currently the integration has the Vehicle Length set to 53 ft. as a default, but this default length can be customized if needed.


Key of Potential Restrictions


No-Truck route

Height restriction

Length restriction

Weight restriction

No Hazardous materials

Axle restriction

 

Google Maps/Street View

Google Maps can be used as another source to gather information if needed. Google Maps can be used to help verify whether a route is truck safe or can be used to get latitude/longitude of the location of the issue.


Review Road/Signs

Street View can help gather more information on whether a route is truck safe. Sometimes there may be a discrepancy between a truck restriction that is shown in TPS and what the driver is seeing in terms of signs/restrictions while driving on the road. For example, a road might show in TPS as having a weight restriction, but the driver says part of the road is not restricted. We can use Google Street View to click down the road with the issue and use the signs to gather more information to help find what restrictions are on the road. If you find that there is a discrepancy, and that HERE navigation could be incorrect about a restriction, that is something that we would want to send to Eleos/HERE to investigate.


Another possible scenario that you would want to use Google Maps to investigate is if the client is claiming the driver was navigated down a non-truck route using Eleos navigation. After confirming that the driver was routed down that road (rather than making a wrong turn), then we can use Google Maps to confirm if there are signs on that road, showing that it is restricted.


Review Latitude/Longitude

Google Maps can also be used to get latitude and longitude of the location of the issue. This is useful if the location of the stop is showing incorrectly in TPS, then you can compare the lat/longs for the correct stop location with the incorrect stop location that the driver is being routed to. The client can confirm if the lat/long in their master data is the correct lat/long for the stop or if there is another lat/long listed that is causing the driver to be routed to the incorrect location.


MyGeotab

If your company uses Geotab, then you can use Trip History in myGeotab to compare your findings in TPS with the path that the driver traveled. Geotab provides an accurate picture of the actual route the driver took, and we use this to compare against the suggested route by HERE and the truckload mapping restrictions. If your company uses a different telematics provider, it may also be possible to do similar troubleshooting steps in your telematics system as the myGeotab steps shown in this document.


If you have access to login to your company’s myGeotab database and have clearance to view Trip’s History, you can review the driver’s Trips History for the time that they had the navigation issue to review the actual actions/route that the driver took. This can be compared to the routes that were presented in TPS, and you can also confirm if there was a driver error.

  1. Go to Trips History.
    Then select the truck or driver that the issue was reported on from the upper left and the date of the issue in the upper right.
     

* Note: In Geotab, the time zone is local to the client’s Geotab Database so you would be able to confirm the time zone in their myGeotab settings. *

 

2. Review Trips History Results.
 In the Trips History results, you can click on segments of the trip with timestamps that are close to the timestamp of the issue. 



3. Mouse over the path the driver traveled.
 Arrows point in the direction traveled, and it is especially important to note if the driver doubled-back on the route and note the times on the route in Geotab. When comparing this to what was found in TPS, you may be able to figure out if the driver followed a path:

  1. that was different than the navigation and should be able to correlate it with the recalculations that occurred in TPS.
    1. If a driver missed a turn, you should be able to see in Geotab where they deviated from the route. This could cause recalculations, in which it is possible that the driver gets routed down a road that is not truck safe to get back to the main route.  If there is evidence of the driver continuously ignoring the navigation, it is likely that the navigation tried to reroute the driver so many times, it began to not compute.
    2. This is also helpful to determine if the driver took a road that was not truck safe on their own accord if it was not a suggested route in TPS.
    3. This could also suggest that the driver was not using Eleos navigation.
  2. that was the same as the navigation, until the driver determined the navigation to be wrong, and then corrected manually.
  3. that was the same as the navigation, even though the navigation was wrong, etc.

When to Open a Ticket with ASR

A ticket should be opened with ASR for a navigation issue after initial factfinding and troubleshooting of the issue occurs.


If the navigation could not route the driver to the stop, please confirm the lat/longs for the stop that are in the TMS master data.  Compare the lat/longs in the master data the location of the issue if it seems like a route could not be computed because of incorrect location data. If the lat/long in the master data is a different location than where the driver should have been routed, correct the lat/long in the master data to resolve the issue.  In the case that the location data is bad, please try correcting it before submitting a ticket.


If the driver was unable to route to the stop, either because of bad location data or because of the truck restrictions that are surrounding the stop, the driver could try to move the pin of the stop in the application so that it is just outside of the restricted area near the stop. This way, the driver can click Route to Stop again, and the navigation will direct the driver to the new pin location without any issues, since it is no longer surrounded by restricted areas. For steps on how to move the pin, see the “Navigation in Loads” section of Eleos - Using Loads in the Eleos Application.   This will help to get the driver routed to the stop until the lat/long data is fixed.

 

If you find that the driver should be cleared by local ordinance or special permission to access a non-truck route to load/unload, and the company has clearance/paperwork to delivery to the area, it can be provided by HERE to update the navigation with it.


Submit a Ticket for Navigation Issue

Remember, that ASR cannot say for 100% certainty why the navigation issue occurred, but we can provide the information that we found to help us find the cause.


You will want to send a ticket to ASR if:

  • It appears a driver was initially navigated down a route that they should not have been (based on the truck and cargo in the Route Options, and truck restrictions on the route).
  • It appears the driver was navigated on re-calculation down a route that they should have been, but alternate routes were still available (this would not be an Eleos issue if the rider ignored directions and ended up backing themself into an area that has no proper route out).
  • There are no restrictions on the route according to TPS, but proof can be provided they exist (i.e., from Google Street View picture, or driver taking a picture).
  • If the company has clearance with the local ordinance to go down a non-truck route and can provide proof.

We need to provide Eleos with the following if opening a ticket:

  • A complete description of the issue especially on route location
  • Route that may have been provided in Drive Axle Trip Planner, comparing the route on telematics site.
  • Driver credentials and the Load ID / Order number for this Trip
  • Date and Timestamp(s) of issue.
  • Lat/long of the location of the navigation issue
  • Prompts or Errors shown on the Navigation instructions if applicable.
  • Navigation Issue Report UUID (link available from Drive Axle Trip Planner)
  • A screenshot or recording of the issue if possible.

Often when there are no restrictions but a lot of “difficult maneuver” areas, the company may say the driver should not be routed that way. It is hard to convince HERE to make changes to a Truck Safe route without Street View screenshots that show signs saying there should be a restriction. This will require documentation (clearances or paperwork) provided by the client and often a review by HERE, for them to consider a change the same way they do restricted areas.