New DOD Mileage System Not Popular With Small Businesses

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The Department of Defense's decision to roll out a new computerized system for calculating mileage for transporters is not popular with small businesses.

Companies are complaining that the department’s new Defense Table of Official Distances, known commercially as PC-Miler, is expensive and impractical. In addition, companies are charging that DOD failed to take into consideration the new system’s impact on small businesses.

"I think it’s going to be pretty expensive to have one of those," systems, said Louise Schulz, who with her husband, Henry Schulz, owns Chief Transfer & Storage, Ogallala, Neb. "They told us we could use the other guides, but they would measure it against theirs, and if they felt the mileage needed to be corrected, they would correct it."

The Schulzes operate four trucks in a 500-mile radius from Ogallala. Mrs. Schulz said about $50,000 a year worth of the company’s business is with DOD. They rely on Mileage Guide 17, published by American Moving and Storage Association. "Our drivers use it because our vans do not have computers in them," she said. "This will force us to have two systems."

Starting next March, all motor carriers involved in military business will have to use PC-Miler, which is supplied by ALK Associates, Princeton, N.J.

The automated system will replace the printed Household Goods Carrier’s Bureau Committee Mileage Guide and its electronic version, Rand McNally’s TDM MileMaker System. Carriers use these and other mileage systems to determine driver pay, and to report fuel and mileage for tax purposes.

For the full story, see the Dec. 14 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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