Welcome to MileOn!
MileOn by PC*MILER is a powerful trip planning app that professional drivers use to map out the most practical routes, view real-time weather conditions, schedule hours of service (HOS) breaks and choose the best rest stops. Using MileOn can help you stay DOT compliant, and save you time and money by helping you make your stops as scheduled.
MileOn is also easy to use. Anyone can quickly become an expert by completing the guided tour below. Follow us as we walk through the steps to create a new trip, complete with HOS breaks, and show you how most drivers typically use the app.
If you've already downloaded MileOn—great! See if you can follow along on your device. If you haven't downloaded the MileOn app yet, stay with us and complete the tour; we hope you'll then decide to give it a try.
In This Tour:
NOTE: Some features covered in the tour are only available with a Premium (paid) subscription. See the difference between Basic (free) and Premium.
Stop 1: Get Started
If you have not yet downloaded the app and created an account, everything you need to know is here.
The first step of any trip in MileOn is to ensure the Settings are in order. These settings will help MileOn select the best route for each trip and vehicle type.
To get to the Settings, tap the hamburger menu and then select Settings.
In the Settings menu you can:
- Select the vehicle type under Truck Routing Profile.
- Select whether to take the most Practical, Shortest or Fastest route under Routing Preferences.
- Enter the Cost Per Mile for cost calculations.
- Choose whether to enable Weather Alerts on the map.
For this tour, we're going to stick with all of the default settings—a 53-foot Trailer or Twins taking a Practical route at a cost of $1.65 a mile. For now, we'll leave the weather alerts setting Off.
TIP: If you're not sure which route type is best to choose, run the trip as a Practical route first, and then go back and try it again, choosing Shortest and then Fastest to compare.
Stop 2: Find Stops
With the Settings reviewed and in order, tap Plan at the top of the Settings screen to return to the Plan screen. Each time the MileOn app is launched, it will land on the Plan screen. This is where the basic itinerary is plugged in—the trip origin, destination, and any stops in between—so that MileOn can go to work and plan the best route for the trip.
For this guided tour, we’re going to plan a trip from our Current Location (1 Independence Way in Princeton, N.J.), where the good people who created MileOn are located, to downtown Miami. If you're following along on your MileOn app, you will have a different starting point.
TIP: The starting point can be changed to any location, just like a stop; you don't have to use Current location.
If you tap either Add Stop or Current Location, the Search screen will open. From the search screen you can:
- Search for a specific location by typing in an address.
- Search for Places, such as a Truck Stop or a Weigh Station, by tapping on an icon.
- Select a recently found location or one of your favorite locations to add as a stop.
We'll type in "601 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL". Now you do the same; notice that as you type, MileOn quickly tries to find a matching location. Once it has found the match, tap it to open the Stop Details screen.
Stop 3: Add Stops
On the Stop Details screen will be a map of the location that was just entered. Swipe up at the bar
to bring up a tray in which we will enter all of the details that will help make this trip a success:
- Select a Stop Type of Pickup, Delivery, Fuel, Break or Other. We'll select Delivery for this trip to Miami. (To have this stop factored into MileOn's HOS calculations, which are described below, you would have to choose Break.)
- Enter the Date & Time of the Stop Type that you chose. This is to ensure that when we tap Create Trip, we can make our delivery on time. We'll pick 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 6.
- Add the Dwell Time, the amount of time required to wait or stay at the stop. It's OK if you don't know it, but it's helpful for calculating ETA's. For this tour, we'll select 30 minutes.
- Type in the Phone number for a contact at the stop. While not required for the tour, this feature can be very helpful at times.
Once all the information has been entered, tap Add Stop to add this stop to your route plan. You can also tap the Heart icon to add to Favorites, saving this particular stop for use in future trips.
Stop 4: Factor in HOS
Before we tap Create Trip, let's enter our available driving hours into MileOn by tapping on the clock icon 
at the bottom of the trip "card." We call it a card because you can open up to 10 trips (cards) at a time by tapping the large + button at the top of the Plan screen.
To use the HOS settings:
- Make sure the toggle button at the top right is turned on.
- Choose a rule type. For this trip, we'll select 60/7 Federal Long Haul.
- Enter your available hours. We'll start with full hours.
Once you get the hang of it, you can also keep a running daily tally by turning on the cycle time gains feature.
Stop 5: Pick Trip Settings
Now that we're done with HOS settings, let's return to the Plan screen by tapping on the back arrow at the top of the Hours of Service screen.
Back on the Plan screen, we need to select some final Trip Settings (tap the gear 
button). We can choose whether our route should Avoid Tolls or obey any Hazmat restrictions. On our guided trip to Miami, we won't use either of these settings.
Stop 6: Create a Trip
With Trip Settings in place, return to the Plan screen by tapping on the back arrow at the top of the screen.
Now it's time to Create Trip. This is where the MileOn magic happens. Are you ready? Set ... tap on Create Trip.
Remember, we didn't enter any of our own break stops, so MileOn inserts suggested 30-minute and 10-hour break stops right in to the route. Voila!
TIP: MileOn is designed to optimize a route based on the current time when you tap Create Trip. That is, the Date & Time you enter under Stop Details will be compared with the current time to see whether you can arrive on schedule. If you're planning a future trip, you can generate the route, but MileOn will still optimize based on a current time departure, rather than backwards from the future delivery window.
If you don’t like the location of a break stop MileOn has suggested, you can easily change it:
- Tap on the break stop.
- Swipe left, and then choose one of the alternate rest stops from the thousands in the MileOn database. Each one listed includes details for the stop, such as amenities and contact information.
- Tap Save to insert the new stop into your trip.
You can also add your own rest stops and delete MileOn's suggested stops altogether. MileOn is, however, very precise in its HOS time calculations, so we suggest:
- Insert your new rest stop anytime BEFORE MileOn's suggested stop.
- Then delete MileOn's stop.
For this tour, however, we'll accept all of MileOn's suggested stops.
Stop 7: Review Our Trip
Back on the Plan screen, we can see the total cost of the trip, total toll costs, the total time the trip will take, and the total miles on the bottom of the trip card. Tap on the mileage total to see the detailed state mileage breakdown.
With our planning essentially complete, tap the map 
button to see the Trip Overview on the map.
On the map, tap the Map Overlay or Map Styles buttons to make any adjustments. Select Map Overlays to see traffic, weather radar or alerts, and Places on the map. Map Styles provides options to change the look of the map, from Day to Night, or Satellite view. Here, we have chosen the Day view, with Traffic and Weather Radar.
On the same screen, just below the map and above the Start button, you can also tap the bar 
to bring up turn-by-turn written directions.
Stop 8: Hit the Road
We're now ready to drive the trip! Or pretend to drive, at least, for this tour.
You can zoom in on your current location by tapping 
, and press Start to start the clock on your trip.
While MileOn shows where you are going, it does not navigate. However, all newer versions of MileOn (1.9 and higher) do support the use of the CoPilot GPS app installed on the same device to navigate their planned trips with CoPilot. The CoPilot app can be download via Google Play or the Apple App Store. It includes 14 days of free voice-guided offline navigation, route planning and real-time traffic. Try the app without any commitment; if you like it, you can subscribe at any time.
If CoPilot is installed on your device, you'll be asked to continue either with or without navigation.
- Navigate with CoPilot will launch the CoPilot app and navigate your trip to the first stop. After arrival, you will then need to log back in to MileOn, retrieve your route, then continue navigation from the 2nd stop.
- Continue without Navigation will open MileOn in the Follow Me mode. As you drive, you can watch your progress—you’re the blue dot moving along the route.
- Tap on Depart to start your trip.
Your ETA and the total time it will take to drive to the next stop from your current location is displayed at the bottom of the Follow Me screen, along with the total distance from your current location to the next stop. On the road:
- When you arrive at a stop, you’ll tap Arrived to update your trip.
- When you depart the stop you’ll once again hit Depart, and follow that process from stop to stop until you arrive at your destination.
- When you’ve completed your trip by arriving at the final stop, tap Arrived. MileOn will acknowledge the end of your journey and save your trip in the Past Trips section in the main menu for reference.
Stop 9: Share with Others
With MileOn, we want to create a community of drivers who share information with each other.
Each rest stop in the MileOn database CAN include parking information and reviews. We say "CAN include" because this information is crowd-sourced from submissions by helpful MileOn users, like yourself. The more information submitted and collected, the better. (You didn't know we'd give you homework, did you?)
Tap the P icon to enter or view parking information for a stop, the + button to read or write a review, and the Post button to submit a review.
Next Steps
You've made it to the end of the tour! If you're thinking, "I can do that," then our mission is complete. Safe travels, MileOn-er.
If you'd like to dig deeper into any topics, please consult our MileOn Support Center about:
As always, enjoy the journey!