Even Better Maps Are Coming!
I started this site because I was getting tons of traffic to my GPS Tracking News and Commentary site regarding Air Mile Maps and various related issues. I am pretty much a one-trick pony in this area, although I worked for years I\on projects in the GIS (Geographic Information Systems field, I am not a GIS practitioner by any stretch of the imagination. I am pretty conversant with Microsoft MapPoint software though and I really feel it is one of Microsoft’s hidden gems … like many other applications MSFT has picked up over the years, they have virtually no clue about marketing it.
They sometimes make it look like an over-priced /next step’ for the Street Maps crowd, and this is wrong placement for sure. They sometimes try to act as if it is a full-fledged replacement for a "real" GIS product such as ESRI’s ArcView, and certainly it is not that. But as a tool that nearly every business or government organization can afford, and that normal bushiness people can use, it’s a great bargain and a very much untapped resource.
The latest version of MapPoint (2009) is getting ready to ship … you can buy it from the convenient link right there in the right-hand column, and you can join a really useful and interesting online resource for MapPoint users.
MP2K — The Magazine for MapPoint Users … all the news that’s fit to print about MapPoint and how to use it in your business, free. Recommended.
You Can Make Your Own Radius map
I’ve mentioned the 100 and 150 air mile radius rules for “local” commercial vehicle operations a number of times … here, here, and here for a few of the more interesting entries. The basics are that commercial, goods carrying vehicles that do not require their drivers to have CDL’s (Commercial Driver Licenses) are still subject to many FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) rules regarding hours of service (HOS) and record-keeping requirements. Depending on several provisions of the law, businesses whose vehicles operate within 100 Air miles of the location where the vehicles regularly return, or 150 Air miles have rules different than the rules for all other commercial vehicles and drivers. These regulations are not road miles, read from vehicle odometers (thank goodness, more on that fallacy here) but should be measured by a radius drawn on a map. How does the average business get a map like this? Well, they can ask me, and I’ll furnish an electronic version (order pager is coming soon, meantime just use the Contact option) … or they can buy Microsoft’s MapPoint, a tool I feel a business shouldn’t be without … 100 mile rule or no 100 mile rule.
How To Make a Radius Map With MapPoint
MapPoint is not a normal part of the Microsoft Offices suite, but it resembles the programs in Office and installs and integrates with them. Open your copy of MapPoint … Your screen should look like this:
Now type the address of the center point of the radius in the “find” box, the upper left corner of the map:
Now click and confirm and you should have a little “push Pin” at the point you want to center on. You 
can right click on that pin, edit the name, color, and other properties as you desire.
Now all that is left is to draw the radius. Make sure you “Drawing” tool bar is open down at the bottom of the map. If it isn’t, select it from the “Views/Toolbars” main menu. The click on the “circle” tool … see the big yellow highlight pointer in this screen shot:
Click on your “Home Plate” map pin and zoom the map out until you make the radius label (bottom right of the circle you are drawing) read “115″ for a “100 Air Mile Map” or “172.6″ for a “150 Air Mile Map”.
Save the map with a file name of your choice, and your’s done?
This isn’t all that MapPoint can do quickly and easily for your business. If you want to know more about how any business can profit from using MapPoint (this is not a sales offer … it’s a no obligation help you learn offer … I like MapPoint that much) just give me a shout.
Now, enjoy your weekend and resolve that next week you are going to do something to make you business more profitable.
As always, I welcome comments, disagreement is encouraged, and you can also contact me via our dedicated, secure, spam-free Contact Page
How Far In Minutes, How Far In Miles?
I often post hints to keep you legal if you operate commercial vehicles under the so-called "short haul" exemptions from the standard FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) HOS (Hours Of Service) or RODS (Record Of Duty Status) (log book) requirements. Wow! How’s that for an acronym-loaded sentence … do you think we have enough rules about trucking in the US, yet?
Anyway, to keep "in bounds" with the mileage restrictions on the local driving issues you only need a simple radios map centered on the place your vehicles will be departing and returning to. I detailed how you can make one quite simply with Microsoft MapPoint. But MapPoint has another very interesting similar function. It allows you to draw a "Drive Time Zone" around any point on the map in virtually a one-click operations. Very, very handy for business planning.