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Advanced Guided Tour: Change the Trip Parameters

NOTE: Do not change trip parameters the first time you take the Guided Tour, EXCEPT WHEN PROMPTED. Changed parameters alter generated routes and calculations, and may make the tour hard to follow. Parameters should only be adjusted once you are familiar with the basic operations of PC*MILER.

The routes that you generated in the Guided Tour were mostly calculated using default trip parameters. However, you can choose from a variety of criteria that will give your routes much more flexibility and efficiency. Please take this opportunity to fully examine the options listed below. We suggest that you generate some sample routes with modified parameters, so that you can see for yourself how these changes will affect driving directions and calculations.

To change a trip’s parameters, first click on the Options button in the route entry window. Then click on the appropriate tab (General Options, Costs and Time, or Road Speeds).

General Options:

• Assign your trip a name by typing it in the Route Name field.

• Change the route type by selecting Practical or Shortest. Either of these route types can be combined with Toll Discouraged and\or National Network or 53' Trailer. (Note that National Network and 53’ Trailer routes are mutually exclusive, you must pick one or the other.)

• Activate routing between countries by checking Borders Open, or keep routing within a country by deselecting it.

• As you have already seen in the Tour, clicking on Use Custom Roads tells PC*MILER to include avoid and favor preferences in route calculations. (Open the Custom Roads Manager from the Tools menu to view all the currently designated preferences. Remember that “Enable State Avoid/Favors” must be checked in the State tab for state preferences to be active.)

• Designate how the order of states appears in the State/Country Distance report by selecting Alphabetical or Route.

• Change the distance calculations by selecting Miles or Km.

Costs and Time:

• Assign costs for empty and loaded miles by clicking on the appropriate field under Trip Costs, and enter your own cost per mile.

• Under Stop Costs, change a trip leg from loaded to empty by clicking the mouse on the check box next to Loaded.

• Assign costs per stop by typing an amount in the $/Stop field, and designate stop time by typing stop duration in the Hours/Stop field. If the stop is counted as on-duty, check the On-Duty check box.

• Designate stop time by typing stop duration in the Hours/Stop field.

• Specify the stop time by selecting On-Duty with the mouse, and type in the number of driving hours allowed before a break is required. (This facilitates drivers’ compliance with DOT Hours of Service Regulations.)

• Type in the length of the break time in the for _____ hours field. (This facilitates drivers’ compliance with DOT Hours of Service Regulations.)

• Add a Border Wait time for expected delays at international borders.

Road Speeds:

• To set new road speeds by state, select a state or province from the pick list (use the up and down arrow keys to scroll to the state) and type new speeds in the appropriate field. Click OK in the Options dialog to save any changes you make. Cancel will close the dialog without saving changes.

To generate a route with new parameters, click on the Run button in the route entry window.

To change PC*MILER’s defaults for these parameters, select Default Options… from the Route menu.

Advanced Guided Tour: Import Your Own Custom Places

NOTE: For a more detailed description of this process, see “Importing Sets of Custom Places” in the PC*MILER User’s Guide or on-line Help.

Earlier in the Guided Tour, you learned how to create your own custom places in PC*MILER. Using the Import Custom Place Wizard, you can also import custom places from a delimited text file or a Microsoft® Excel® file. For importing, an Excel file must be saved in Excel Version 4 (or earlier) format. If you have such a file available, you can go ahead and import a set of custom places:

1. Select Import Custom Places from the Tools menu.

2. In the Open file dialog box that appears, select the file that contains your custom place data. (Don’t forget to specify the type of file you are importing in the Files of type field.)

3. The Geocode File window will appear. Your data should appear in the table at the bottom of the screen. If the first row of data is comprised of column headings rather than custom place information, check off First row contains column headings.

4. If the data in your file was separated by a delimiter, specify in the Delimeter area whether it was by Tab, Comma, Semicolon, or Space.

5. Now you will label each of the columns that contain data, so that PC*MILER can identify what type of information is there. With your left mouse button, click on the heading labeled “Skip” above each data column. Select the proper category for each column heading from the list that appears. You must provide at least a Name column and a location (either City and State, Lat\Long, or ZIP). If you like, you can save the current column order before proceeding further – click Save Column Order and enter a name then press OK.

6. Click on the Options button to open the Geocoding Options window. Under Records to Process, choose “Selected”, and enter “1 to 50” in the two fields beside it (it’s okay if you have fewer than 50 places in your file). Then click OK at the bottom of this window. You will be returned to the Geocode File window.

7. You have prepared your file for PC*MILER to read and compare with its own database, so click OK in the Geocode File window. The Wizard will begin to process your data.

8. As your custom place information is being processed, a Results window is visible. This window displays data matching as it progresses. The display shows whether or not each custom place was matched with a location in the PC*MILER database, and how exact each match is.

9. When processing is finished, an expanded Results dialog appears.

10. Next to Add selected places to near the bottom of the dialog, check both Custom Place Manager and Route Entry Window. When both are selected, your custom places will be sent to the Custom Place Manager, and will also be added to a route entry window as a set of stops on a route.

11. Click on the Options button to activate the Custom Place Manager Options dialog box. Under Adding places to route entry window, select Create a new window.

12. To finish importing your custom places into PC*MILER, click Add. In this case, the custom places that will be imported will be the ones marked as “Accepted” -- database matches, labeled with a “+”. (This window also allows you to alter each data record, and change the places to be added to PC*MILER. But to keep this tour simple, we’ll only add Accepted stops. See your PC*MILER User’s Guide for more information.)

13. The Custom Place Manager will appear with your imported places now displayed as custom places. Click OK to accept the additions.

14. Now that you are done importing your custom places, click OK in the Import Custom Places Wizard to close it. You will be returned to the PC*MILER desktop. Notice that you have added a new route entry window, with your imported places listed as stops! If you like, you can run a route.

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