IDOT UPDATE Driving a commercial vehicle in Iowa? 511 has made some updates to help you! Professional drivers have a myriad of tools at their fingertips to complete a successful trip. For more than two decades, Iowa’s traveler information website, www.511ia.org has been one of those tools. As you may have noticed, the www.511ia. org website recently went through a major overhaul. For more than a year the Iowa Department of Transportation has ran a test version of the new site alongside the existing site and gathered your feedback on features and functions. With your comments taken into consideration, the new site was fully launched March 17. The “old” fullfeatured version and “trucker” versions of the 511 websites were retired. The information from both sites have been folded into one robust site designed to allow you maximum flexibility to find the information you need. For commercial drivers, this change means no longer having to navigate to a separate website version. Simply turn on the Commercial Vehicles toggle at the bottom of the layers menu to put it in “trucker mode”. Turning on this toggle automatically activates the “Restrictions for Commercial Vehicles” and “Weigh Stations” layers. All other layers are available to be activated by clicking on that layer.
Different colored icons allow you to see at-aglance if a truck stop is reporting parking availability and if that location has available spaces.
Finding truck parking along Iowa Interstates is also made easier by www.511ia.org. By clicking on the “Rest Areas” layer, commercial drivers can click on a specific site, whether that’s public rest areas or select private truck stops, to see a list of amenities and available parking spots where that information is available. Gathering updated information on the road is vital to keeping the nations trucking industry moving safely and efficiently. Using these handy features on www.511ia.org offers a way to help you plan a safer, more efficient trip.
ISSUE 2, 2021
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