Truckers are looking to routing software to deal with these detours; This is the second time they’ve had to do this in six to seven months due to severe closures. In the first case, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, The solution wasn’t that complicated: Take the two tunnels under the Port of Baltimore or continue on Interstate 695 on the west side of the Baltimore metropolitan area.

But U.S. highways aside, the significant loss of access on two interstates poses a much more complex problem. For example, the North Carolina Department of Transportation Friday was reporting In this state alone, approximately 415 roads were closed and at least 120 bridges needed replacement.

Rishi Mehra, Trimble’s vice president of commercial mapping and routing technology, works in the segment of the tech company that offers CoPilot, which is, at its most basic, a routing service for trucks and other vehicles.

The trucking industry’s ability to handle disruptions is “starting to look a lot better,” Mehra told FreightWaves in a recent interview.

“Based on the guidelines, we started redirecting traffic a little bit more south and then north across,” he said.

The guides are loaded into the Trimble CoPilot system and provide the basis for directing truck traffic onto closed roads. PC Miler is Trimble utility software that runs in the back office of a trucking company; CoPilot in the cab of the truck.

Getting back to US Highways

Mehra Trimble said (NASDAQ:TRMB) “It takes advantage of US highways.” He added that the routing was not done solely by Trimble, but was produced after consultations with local authorities about where vehicles, especially trucks, preferred to travel while avoiding road closures.

For example, U.S. Highway 19 runs parallel to Interstate 26 for most of the route from Asheville, North Carolina to the Tennessee line. U.S. Highway 25 also runs from the Asheville area into Tennessee, but enters the Volunteer State a significant distance from where I-26 crosses the border.

Mehra noted that interstates remain open around Asheville. “This helps streamline traffic flow in other areas,” he said, saying it is more “structured” as a result. “We are corresponding with local authorities to ensure that we are not diverting traffic in a way that would hinder the restoration process in any way.”

Local governments are not necessarily Trimble customers, Mehra said. What Trimble wants from these officials is “to give us information. What do you see? What are you modeling? How can we remove trucks from the area? “How can we best organize traffic for you?”

The end is not near

The return of full access to the region’s two major interstate highways won’t happen anytime soon. The focus of much of the discussion is on months, not weeks.

It can be a good news/bad news situation. For example, I-26 in North Carolina, which runs mostly north to northwest to south and north of Asheville, despite having even numbers normally reserved for east-west highways, is fully open after a brief closure following Helene.

The problem is that when a driver on Route 26 approaches the Tennessee line, the vehicle is not allowed to cross into that state because the road is closed near the state line except for local traffic.

So a truck leaving North Carolina heading into Tennessee on 26 will need to exit the interstate at Exit 3 in North Carolina, according to Mark Nagi, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Passenger vehicles can continue but must exit Interstate 26 at Exit 40 at Tennessee and then detour through the town of Erwin. Commercial vehicles making urban deliveries can continue their journey after Exit 3.

Meanwhile, truck traffic coming from Interstate 26 from the north, such as the Johnson City, Tennessee area, should exit Exit 37 via exit 26, Nagi said in an email to FreightWaves.

Hopes for I26 traffic in Tennessee

He added that the state hopes to fully open I-26 as a two-lane highway this week.

“Construction activities are continuing to provide 1 lane in each direction between Exit 37 and Exit 40 on I-26,” Nagi said. “This traffic will be westbound. Once completed, the vital east-west connection to the interstate will be re-established. Expect this to happen later this week.”

However, large loads will not be allowed. These loads are being routed via an extensive alternate route using Interstates 81 and 77, Nagi said.

Interstate 26 has rules allowing local vehicles to use the roadway in that area near Erwin, but this does not apply to the portion of 26 where two collapsed bridges are located between exits 37 and 40. Local vehicles that can use the interstate are after Exit 40. North Carolina border.

But even on the section of Interstate 26 between Exit 40 and the state line, in addition to just local traffic restrictions, the road is a two-lane highway — one lane open in each direction.

Meanwhile, Interstate 40 is open in both directions (one lane each on the normally westbound side of the highway) in Cocke County, Tennessee, between mile markers 446 and 451, just before the state line, according to Nagi.

However, the spokesman said it was only open to local traffic. He said all commercial vehicles heading toward the North Carolina border on I-40 must exit at Exit 440.

Across the border, I-40 is closed in both directions from the state line to Exit 20 in North Carolina.

Aaron Moody, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, said the state recently awarded an $8 million contract to stabilize Interstate 40 before beginning larger reconstruction.

He called the debate over when Interstate 40 in North Carolina might return to normal the “million-dollar question.”

Asked whether I-40 in North Carolina could be converted to a two-lane highway on the portion of the roadway that wasn’t heavily damaged by floodwaters, as was done with Interstate 26 in Tennessee, Moody said it would largely depend on the roadways. Under the contractor’s plans, the state ultimately opts to permanently rebuild I-40 in the Tar Heel state.

“We can’t answer that with a lot of confidence right now because we don’t know what designs are going to be on the table and we don’t know what the security requirements are going to look like for contractors trying to get in there,” Moody said.

Are the movers understanding?

What’s going on with repairing damaged roads, not just interstates, affects what Trimble does.

How a company navigates can depend on its relationship with the carrier, Mehra said. This relationship may be such that the shipper willingly accepts a deviation of 50 to 100 miles. “So we helped with some of that analysis,” Mehra said. “Some of our customers came back and said, ‘Can you analyze this for us and let us know what the real impact will be if we just avoid all this tension altogether? And will we go a different route?'” He added that in some cases, shippers are completely accepting of the guidance and extra miles .

Relying on U.S. highways has its challenges. Parts of the US highway allow traffic to flow uninterrupted and at a speed close to that of the interstate; others may have a series of red lights.

Mehra said no routing software can accurately plan for the impact of red lights on a U.S. highway or any local road. But he said the traffic pattern was slowed “to model the impact on travel time.” However, it is inevitable that there will be red lights in some areas.”

Other articles by John Kingston

TFI’s Bedard: Buying UPS’s LTL operations wasn’t a mistake

Trucking and marijuana testing head to Supreme Court

ATRI survey: Drivers and carriers see top issues in trucking differently