ALK to Offer Web Link With PC Miler Program

By Dan Leone, Staff Reporter

This story appears in the April 28 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

PRINCETON, N.J. — ALK Technologies will add a Web-based version of its PC Miler mapping and routing software to the company’s family of truck navigation products this year, ALK’s chief technology officer said.

“PC Miler Web will be a new product and is planned for release in the fourth quarter of 2008,” said Michael Bodden, CTO of Princeton, N.J.-based ALK.

PC Miler, ALK’s truck-specific mapping and routing software, also will expand tolling data for medium-duty trucks in a major upgrade scheduled to go live “by the end of April,” Bodden said.

PC Miler Web, he said, will act as an online user interface, capable of displaying mapping and routing data downloaded from a remote ALK server via the company’s PC Miler Web Services product.

PC Miler Web Services, already on the market, provides software developers a point of access for piping ALK’s mapping data directly into their own applications, Bodden said.

He added that PC Miler Web will use “the same core technology” as PC Miler Web Services but will provide a graphical display for end-users who don’t want to create their own.

Looking forward, Bodden said that version 23 of PC Miler, due out in the first quarter of 2009, will add support for longer combination vehicles. ALK does not yet provide routing tailored specifically for LCVs.

Because LCVs are heavier than a standard 53-foot truck-trailer combination, they must be routed around prohibited areas, such as bridges or spans with low weight restrictions, ALK said.

Meanwhile, ALK also said it is working to integrate mapping data from the United States Census Bureau into the digital maps the company uses in its navigation systems and routing software.

The Census Bureau publishes its mapping data in a format known as Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing, or TIGER.

Adding TIGER data to its digital maps helps ALK “pick up valuable information on more major [traffic] arteries,” Bodden said.

The TIGER data are especially useful for keeping ALK’s routing data current, he said, because major highways are sometimes “twinned,” or split into parallel roadways, forcing ALK to tweak the turn-by-turn directions it provides for truckers.
ALK now has integrated TIGER data from 1,050 U.S. counties into its digital map library. The company said it hopes to boost that number to 1,400 counties by the time PC Miler 23 is released.