ETA calculations: Configuring max distance and speed for approximate Hours of Service

Having approximate times of arrival (ETAs) that are as accurate as possible can be an important tool for your business. Turvo’s default ETA calculations assume continuous driving, since over 75% of over-the-road shipments for Turvo customers are short- or medium-haul shipments that are normally completed in one working day.

For long-haul shipments, an approximation of the Hours of Service (HoS) that drivers are able to work can be factored into your ETA calculations. To accomplish this, Turvo provides the ability to configure maximum distance/day and average speed preferences for your tenant, which Turvo will use to estimate the HoS and factor them into ETA calculations for shipments above an indicated distance threshold.

This self-service, tenant-level configuration is available to users on your tenant with access to the Admin Console and Owner, Admin, or Super Admin credentials.

Important note: These settings only affect the ETAs shown on your tenant for shipments using the TL, LTL, or Drayage  modes. The HoS that Turvo calculates is an approximation only. Real world factors such as the driver’s actual speed and traffic delays may affect the actual time of arrival for the shipment.

Note: Shipment ETAs are calculated based on the data presented in the tenant the shipment is being viewed in. ETAs calculated for one tenant are not directly shared to another tenant because the data used to calculate ETAs (such as dwell time) could vary from tenant to tenant. If you’d like to be the provider of ETAs to your connected tenants when shipments are shared, reach out to your Turvo representative. Your customers with connected tenants will also need to submit a Support request  for configuration to receive shipment ETAs that are calculated in your tenant using the settings described in this article.

The article below provides instructions for:

• Configuring your preferred maximum distance and average speed for shipments with single or multiple drivers
• Configuring a shipment for single or multiple drivers
• How ETA is calculated with approximate HoS

Configuring your preferred maximum distance and average speed for shipments with single or multiple drivers

Step 1:

From anywhere in Turvo, click your profile icon in the top right corner, then select Admin console from the drop-down.

Then click the Settings card to open the tenant settings.

Step 2:

Click the Shipments section header, then click ETA.

Step 3:

By default, the Average speed & max miles configuration toggle is the only field present in the ETA segment, and will be toggled to the Off position. Turvo doesn’t consider these settings for any ETA calculation while this toggle is off.

Click the toggle to turn on the HoS configuration settings. The toggle will turn from grey to blue and the fields for configuring your tenant’s average speed and max miles preferences will be displayed.

Final Step

Use the following fields to configure how HoS should be calculated for your tenant.

• Units: Use the drop-down to select from Miles (mi) or Kilometers (Km) to indicate the unit of distance used in the HoS calculation.
• Miles is the default setting.
• Single driver max driving distance / day: Set the total maximum distance allowed in 24 hours that a single driver can drive on a shipment.
  • The default setting is 500 miles.
• Team of drivers max driving distance / day: Set the total maximum distance allowed in 24 hours that a team of drivers can drive on a shipment.
  • The default setting is 850 miles.
• Average speed / hour: The average miles per hour (mph) or kilometers per hour (kph) that the driver(s) should be traveling.
  • The default setting is 50 mph.
  • Turvo will divide the max driving distance per day settings by the average speed to approximate the total number of hours your driver(s) can work per day. For example:
  • If your max driving distance for a single driver is 600 miles and the average speed is 60 mph, then Turvo will approximate that your total working hours allowed per 24 hours will be 10 hours.
• Apply for shipments with distance greater than: Enter the distance threshold that you wish for the HoS to be considered. ETA calculations for shipments with total distances below this threshold will not consider the approximate HoS.
  • The default setting is 350 miles.
  • For example, when this threshold is set to 350 miles and a single driver is allowed to drive 500 miles in a single day’s HoS, then:
    • If a shipment is 350 miles or less, it is generally safe to assume that the driver can complete the shipment in a single working day and HoS will not be factored into the ETA calculations.
    • If a shipment has a distance of more than 350 miles but less than 500 miles, the driver may encounter delays that could prevent them from covering the distance within the HoS. This way, HoS is already applied if delays occur.
• Note: If you are adding or updating your preferred HoS configuration, only shipments with distances that exceed the new distance in the Apply for shipments with distance greater than field will utilize the new HoS settings. Other shipments will use existing ETA logic that assumes continuous driving.

Once you’ve entered your preferred settings, click SAVE to apply the changes to your tenant.

Note: After any changes are made in Settings, a Confirmation required pop-up appears. Since changing admin settings will affect several different users throughout your tenant, you need to confirm that you want to make the changes.

You also have the option to force all users to refresh their tenant in order for the changes to apply. It’s recommended that you refresh your browser or log out and log back in to your tenant once your changes are complete for them to take effect for you as well. 

Configuring a shipment for single or multiple drivers

Once your preferred HoS configurations are complete, the Driver segment of the Carrier section of your shipments’ Details tab will include a new Driver type drop-down. Use this to select either Single or Team of Drivers.

Note: The Driver type field defaults to Single. This allows Turvo to calculate an ETA before a driver is assigned.

If you are updating the Driver Type field, and driver information has not been added to the Driver segment, select or add a driver, then click SAVE AND SHARE. The approximate ETA will now be recalculated.

Protip: See our article, Assign a driver to a shipment, for more information on adding a driver to a shipment and creating new drivers.

Note: Only one driver contact can be added to the shipment, even if you set the Driver type drop-down to Team of drivers.

Expected dwell times

An expected dwell time can be configured for all locations in your tenant, manually configured for a location, or for an individual shipment stop. Turvo will factor these dwell times into the approximate ETA it calculates. For more information on configuring the dwell time, see our articles:

• Self-service tenant configuration: How to set up your Admin console 
• How to set up expected dwell time for a location
• How to edit expected dwell time on a stop 

How ETA is calculated with approximate HoS

Turvo utilizes the settings configured in the Admin console > Settings > Shipment > ETA segment, the distances between the current location and next stop, and the expected dwell time for the shipment’s locations in order to create an approximate ETA for the driver’s arrival at the next location in the shipment.

Note: If the distance falls below the threshold set in the ETA segment, or if the segment has not been configured, Turvo uses the distance to calculate a continuous drive time from the current location to the delivery location and adds any dwell times noted in the locations’ profiles.

ETA calculation example scenario

Review the example scenario below for a better understanding of how these ETA calculations work in Turvo.

It’s 8:15 AM on a Monday morning and your driver has just picked up a shipment from Stop A and is headed to Stop B. The driving distance from Stop A to Stop B is 800 miles and the following configurations are true:

• In the shipment:
  • The Distance between Stop A and Stop B is 800 miles.
  • The Driver Type field is set to Single
  • The Expected dwell time for Stop B is 2 hours.
• In the Admin console’s ETA segment settings:
  • Apply for shipments with distance greater than = 500 miles.
    • 800 > 500. Therefore, Turvo will calculate the approximate HoS as part of the ETA.
  • Single driver max driving distance / day is 500 miles and the Average speed is 50 mph.
    • 500 miles/50 mph = 10 hours max drive time per 24 hour period.
    • If 10 hours are reached, the full 24 hour day will be factored into the ETA calculation.

Turvo then uses these ETA segment and shipment configurations to calculate your ETA with the following steps:

1. The route’s total distance, 800 miles, is divided by the Average speed of 50 mph, which equals 16 hours of total drive time.
2. The 2 hours of dwell time at Stop B is added to the total 16 hour drive time, which equals 18 hours total.
3. Because 10 hours equals one full working day (24 hours), the drive time used for the ETA calculation is 1 day and 8 hours (32 hours).

Therefore, if your driver left Stop A at 8:15 AM on a Monday morning, the 32 hours considered for the ETA for delivery at Stop B is 2:15 PM on Tuesday afternoon.

The table below provides several examples of how the ETA might change based on the HoS settings, distance, and dwell time.

Note: The scenarios in this table were created to divide cleanly for easier reading. Within Turvo, ETAs will consider the estimated times down to the minute. If the Calculated Drive time + Dwell time is above the allowed drive time in one day, it will always be counted as a full day. No buffer time is incorporated into the calculation.