Waze Can’t Do Truck Routes — Here Are 4 Apps That Can

More than 140 million users rely on Waze to get them from point A to point B. It's popular and user-friendly. But can Waze help truckers and delivery drivers plan their routes? 

Truckers, and large commercial vehicles in general, have specific needs and concerns when planning routes. They have to:

• Obey weight restrictions
• Avoid narrow roads
• Avoid low bridges
• Stay off truck-restricted roads

All this can make it challenging to get from one destination to the next in a timely manner.

Can Waze solve this problem by planning truck-friendly routes? Not exactly.

Can you use Waze for truck or commercial vehicle routing?

Waze is not the best option for truck or commercial vehicle route planning. In fact, Waze only offers route options for three different types of vehicles: cars, taxis and motorcycles.

If you’re thinking, “What’s the big deal?” —  consider this:

With no option for trucks or commercial vehicles, Waze could wind up sending you down weight-restricted roads, under low-clearance bridges, or into dangerous areas for truckers.

Additionally, Waze doesn’t allow you to create multi-stop routes. 

So, if your goal is to plan efficient routes for your truck, Waze is not the right solution.

What about Google Maps?

Google Maps makes it easy to plan a multi-stop route, but that doesn’t mean it’s a great option for commercial drivers, either. Like Waze, Google Maps was designed with passenger vehicles in mind.

Maps can help you avoid road closures and dangerous road conditions, but it won’t help you avoid low-clearance bridges, tunnels or truck-restricted roads.

Don’t believe me?

I created a five-stop route near my home town in North Carolina to put Maps to the test:

1. Start: 855 Glenn Bridge Rd, Arden, NC 28704
2. 3871 Sweeten Creek Rd, Arden, NC 28704
3. 2901 Hendersonville Rd, Fletcher, NC 28732
4. 60 Airport Rd, Arden, NC 28704
5. End: 15 McKenna Rd, Arden, NC 28704

Along this route, there’s a low clearance bridge (13'2) on Glenn Bridge Road. 

Let’s see if Google Maps will help me avoid that bridge. 

Nope! 

Google Maps may work for you if you’re already very familiar with the area. But if you’re not, you could end up like this poor trucker who wound up overturning his 18-wheeler and hanging off a mountainside not too far from my route above. The driver was unfamiliar with the area and followed directions over a tunnel on a not-so-truck-friendly road, where he went left of center and off the embankment.

How can you avoid a horror story like this one? Use a route planning and navigation app that’s trucker-friendly.

The best Waze alternatives for truck route planning

Waze and Google Maps may be off the table, but there are other apps that are designed specifically for commercial vehicles.

To help you find the best truck routing app, I put the top four solutions to the test using the route I created above. 

Let’s see how each app handles this route and explore its features to see if it’s worth your time.

1. Hammer App

Platforms: Android & iOS

Standout features: GPS navigation, ETAs, trucker specific routes

Hammer is easily one of the top truck GPS apps, with more than 48k reviews on Google Play and 25k+ reviews on the App Store.

With the tap of a button, you can update your truck presets, change your routing options, adjust the display and sound settings, and so much more. 

Hammer’s route planning feature is speedy and easy to use. It found the fastest route for my stops and avoided that pesky low bridge. 

In fact, as it’s calculating your route, Hammer lets you know that it’s:

• Avoiding truck-restricted roads
• Checking weight restrictions
• Avoiding low bridges

Once Hammer calculated my route, I also had the option to find nearby:

• Gas stations
• Truck stops
• Weigh stations
• CAT scale
• Trucking parking

Plus, there’s no need to switch apps for navigation. Hammer uses Here Maps to give you turn-by-turn directions right from within the app. 

Of all the apps I tested, Hammer was the best in terms of speed and easy use. 

But here’s what I didn’t like: You have to jump through hoops to start using the app.

Before you can start navigating, Hammer asks for your email, name, and information about your trucking career — what license you have, how long you’ve been driving, etc.

Once you’re past this stage, it’s smooth sailing to enter your route and get moving.

Overall, most users love Hammer. They say the app makes it easy to plan their routes and avoid truck restrictions. But like with any other navigation app, updates can sometimes “break” important features, like Bluetooth connectivity and voice navigation.

Depending on your reliance on Hammer, these hiccups could throw a wrench in your route planning.

Another perk of Hammer is that its features aren’t hiding behind a paywall. You can use all features for free, but if you want to upgrade your experience, you can purchase a subscription.

Hammer offers two subscription options:

• Founding Member: $5/month
• Supporter: $2.99/month

Signing up for a subscription removes all ads and gives you earlier access to map updates.

2. Trucker Path

Support: Android & iPhone

Standout features: Trucker GPS, find truck stops and rest areas, truck-friendly routes with weight restriction warnings, and alternative route options

With over 1 million downloads on Google Play and 100k+ ratings on the App Store, Trucker Path is a behemoth in the truck navigation space.

And that’s because the app was designed from the ground up with truckers in mind.

With Trucker Path, you can:

• Find 500,000+ truck stops in the U.S. and Canada, including popular chains like Pilot, Flying J, Petro, and more
• Create routes specifically for your truck height, weight, width, and type
• Avoid things like sharp turns, low overpasses, small roads, and more
• See real-time parking availability and find overnight parking
• Plan long-distance and multi-day routes for OTR truck drivers

There’s a lot to love about Trucker Path. Planning my route was quick and simple, but I was limited to four stops unless I signed up for a plan. 

I was happy to find that my route avoided the low bridge. The app even warned me about weight restrictions along the route and gave me the option to avoid it (kudos!). 

That said, if you want to truly unlock the functionalities and benefits of this app, you need to purchase a subscription.

Without one, you’re limited to just a few stops and can only choose car routes. 

Truckers can choose from two subscription pricing options:

• Gold: $14.99/mo or $149/year
• Diamond: $24.99/mo or $249.99/year

Both options give you truck-specific routing, turn-by-turn directions, parking prediction, weight station prediction, and more. Diamond dials up the benefits by offering fuel and HOS optimization.

Trucker Path has a lot to offer, but what do actual users have to say?

Truckers seem to have mixed feelings about this app. Recent reviews lean negative, with users complaining about glitchy navigation, sluggish use, and the app crashing. 

Personally, I found Trucker Path to be speedy enough, but virtually every feature you would want to use is hidden behind a paywall.

The app does have a 7-day free trial, so you can take it for a spin to decide whether it’s a good fit for your route planning needs.

3. Sygic GPS Truck & Caravan

Support: Android & Apple

Standout features: Trucker GPS, real-time traffic updates, speed limit alerts, commercial truck-specific routes

Sygic’s truck and caravan app is trusted by over 5 million drivers and some of the world’s largest delivery fleets. It boasts features that every trucker can appreciate, like:

• Live traffic updates, so you can avoid traffic jams and roadworks
• Millions of points of interest (POIs), including gas stations, truck stops, weigh stations, rest areas, parking lots, and more
• Alerts for speed cameras
• Lane assist
• Offline maps
• Custom routing based on your vehicle’s parameters
• Multi-stop route planning

Adding my route was quick and simple, but I noticed that:

• Navigation is limited to the maps you download
• You’re only given one route option
• It seems to ignore your vehicle parameters

Despite adjusting my vehicle’s parameters, Sygic still sent me under the low bridge. I’m not the only one that had this issue. Reviewers of this app also complained of being sent on dirt roads and areas that are difficult for truckers to navigate.

For truckers and fleet owners, this issue is one that’s difficult to overlook. At this point, you may as well use Google Maps.

But that wasn’t the only issue I saw with this app. Planning multi-day or long-distance routes may be challenging.

If you want to plan an OTR route, you’ll need to make sure that you download every map for every state you will pass through. 

For example, I downloaded the North Carolina and Vermont maps. When I tried to plan a route from one state to the other, it failed, gave me an error, and brought me back to the map.

Despite these issues, Sygic’s app is still one of the most downloaded and popular options, at least for Android users. On Google Play, the app has been downloaded over 1 million times.

You can try out their Premium plan for 7 days to see if Sygic is a good fit for you. Once your trial is up, you can choose between two paid options:

• Premium: $84.99 
• Premium + Carplay/Android Auto: $114.99 (includes integration with your vehicle’s infotainment system)

These are lifetime plans, so you’re making a one-time payment to get access to these features.

4. TruckMap

Support: Android & iOS

Standout features: Truck GPS app function, navigation specifically for commercial vehicles (truck entrances, loading docks, truck access roads), facility reviews from drivers

TruckMap is similar to the Waze app in many ways. One of the most noticeable similarities is the community or crowd-sourced aspect of the app. TruckMap has an active community of over 1 million drivers, and these drivers share their insights to help others find safe trucking facilities.

For example, you’ll find ratings for:

• Parking and restroom availability
• Loading and unloading experience
• Overnight availability

These insights can be helpful when planning long-distance or multi-day routes, both of which are possible with TruckMap.

The app also makes it easy to find points of interest nearby, including:

• Fuel stations
• Parking (truck, overnight, and hazmat)
• Truck washes
• Weigh stations
• Rest areas
• Grocery stores

All of these trucker-friendly features are great, but what about route planning?

TruckMap was designed with truck drivers in mind, so routes are created and optimized specifically for commercial vehicles. They take into account:

• Truck restrictions (low bridge clearances, weight limits, restricted roads, etc.)
• Weigh station status
• Hours of Service regulations
• Parking availability

My biggest complaint? TruckMap is sluggish. Planning my route was frustrating because the app kept freezing. But ultimately, it did give me a few truck-friendly routes to choose that avoided weight restrictions and that low-clearance bridge.

I’m not the only one with complaints about this app. Some users say TruckMap doesn’t run well in the background, and a few truckers were sent onto questionable roads. 

But overall, reviews lean positive for this app.

Considering this is a purely free app, these grievances are easy to overlook.

Choosing the best app for your truck route planning needs

For truckers and delivery drivers, route optimization isn’t just a matter of finding the fastest route from point A to point B; it’s about finding a route that’s efficient and safe for your vehicle.

Waze just won’t cut it. Neither will Google Maps. However, the four apps above are great alternatives (quirks and all). Along with planning safe and efficient routes, these apps can help you locate truck stops, parking areas, fuel stations, and other trucker-specific points of interest along the way.