TruETA overview

First available in: TMW Operations 2019.4 .Requirements:

  • The TruETA license must be applied to your TMW Operations database.

  • You must have system administrator permissions across multiple platforms to install and set up TruETA.

  • You must have these Trimble Web Products modules installed:

    • Licensing
      Licensing API
      For details, see the Trimble Web Products installation topic in the application’s online help.

    • SystemsLink
      SystemsLink Core API
      For details, see the SystemsLink installation topic in the application’s online help.

    • WorkCycle

      • WorkCycle Management

      • WorkCycle SystemsLink Objects

      • WorkCycle Service

        For details, see the WorkCycle installation topic in the application’s online help.

TruETA is a cloud-based, trip-planning tool that uses real-time data to calculate an estimated time of arrival (ETA) for each stop along a truck’s route.

With TruETA, you can:

  • Plan a driver’s trip

  • Add, edit, or modify a driver’s scheduled rest stops

  • View trip progress with Trimble Maps

  • View driver or tractor ETA

TruETA uses:

  • A WorkCycle process to trigger SystemsLink API calls to the TruETA service.

  • File caching to prevent performance issues in TMW Operations.

  • Trimble Maps' commercial mapping platform to visualize live traffic flows, as well as weather overlays of current conditions including radar, cloud cover, alerts, and road surface conditions to identify potential scheduling issues quickly.

It considers all of the following when calculating stop ETAs:

  • Vehicle’s current location
    Location based on the GPS coordinates from the tractor’s check calls.

  • Driver Hours of Service (HoS)
    TruETA Preplanning calculates time for required driver rest breaks and calculates remaining Hours of Service at each destination.

    Hours of Service are calculated by the Trimble Maps Hours of Service planning engine, based on the hours recorded in the Driver Hours of Service window in TMW Operations.

    For information on using Chaining Trips to predict HoS and on-time deliveries, see Chaining trips together.

  • Real-time and predictive traffic speeds
    Traffic speeds are calculated for each assigned route by the Trimble Maps truck routing engine.

TruETA can run calculations for all of your non-completed trips. However, the calculations are most precise for trips that have a driver, tractor, or a carrier assigned and have check calls recorded. For these trips, the system makes additional calls to Trimble Maps Web Services that result in more thorough ETA calculations.

In addition to calculating tractor ETAs based on GPS readings, you can also set up the system to monitor these occurrences:

  • No Assignment
    Monitors whether resources are assigned a user-defined amount of time before the trip’s scheduled start.

  • Planned start
    Monitors whether the trip starts within a user-defined number of hours of the planned start time.

  • Early windows
    Monitors whether tractors arrive at a stop earlier than the times specified for the stop.

    The system compares the dates/times recorded in the stop’s Arrival and Earliest columns.

  • Late windows
    Monitors whether tractors arrive at a stop later than the times specified for the stop.

    The system compares the dates/times recorded in the stop’s Arrival and Latest columns.

Glossary of TruETA Preplanning terms

ETA

A driver’s estimated time of arrival

Hours of Service (HoS)

A driver’s Hours of Service as calculated by TMW Operations or the device in the tractor

Out of Corridor (OOC)

Maximum number of miles a driver is allowed to deviate from a stop before the system warns the dispatcher

Out of Route (OOR)

Maximum number of miles a driver is allowed to deviate from a stop before the system warns the dispatcher

If this value is higher than the allowable threshold, the system warns the dispatcher.

SystemsLink

A Trimble Web Products module that allows TMW Operations to connect to Trimble Maps and the TruETA service

TruETA Agent

This is the basic TruETA feature that calculates a driver’s ETA based on calculations. It uses the TruETA Agent to perform TruETA calculations

Before TMW Operations 2019.4, this was the only TruETA method. Now, your company can now choose to use this method or the enhanced TruETA method.

TruETA service

A web service that uses real-time data from the tractor or driver to perform calculations

TruETA

This is the newer TruETA feature that uses SystemsLink, Trimble Maps, and web services to calculate a driver’s ETA

This feature was added in TMW Operations 2019.4. It also requires Trimble Web Products.

WorkCycle

A Trimble web products module that allows process to be completed on a set schedule