Somebody has to model the freight
Each item, its weight, its dimensions and where it sits on the deck, plus the tractor and trailer geometry underneath it. That model is what turns a pile of pallets into five axle numbers.
Head to head
It asks for a weight per axle. We are the answer to that question.
HERE takes vehicle height, width, length, gross weight and weight per axle, and returns a road that respects all of them. Every one of those figures is something you have to already know.
- HERE Technologies
- 12 comparison criteria
- Public documentation, August 2026
Who it is for
Teams building commercial vehicle routing into their own software.
This is road infrastructure of a very high standard, and it is deliberately built to be built on.
What HERE does well
HERE publishes truck routing that takes the real dimensions of a commercial vehicle and plans around the structures, streets and restrictions those dimensions rule out. Hazardous material restrictions are applied, toll costs come back with the road, and the coverage runs across continents rather than one market.
Underneath the routing sits the rest of the platform — maps, geocoding, place data and traffic — which matters more than it sounds. A freight application needs an address to resolve correctly before anything else it does can be right, and address quality is not a solved problem for anyone who has not spent decades on it.
Notably, the routing accepts a weight per axle. That is an unusually honest parameter to expose. It says, correctly, that the structure ratings on a road care about what each axle is putting down, not about a gross figure. It also quietly assumes the caller has that number.
The parameter is the right question. Somewhere upstream of it, a person is dividing a gross weight by the number of axles.
The parameter that gives the game away
A routing service that asks for weight per axle has already understood the problem. It is simply not the component whose job it is to work the number out, and it takes whatever it is handed on trust.
The job it was not built for
Consuming an axle weight is not the same as producing one.
Three things have to happen before that parameter can be filled in honestly, and none of them belongs in a road network.
Somebody has to apply the statute
The bridge formula across every consecutive axle group, the tandem exception where it applies, the tire ratings and the axle ratings, in the jurisdiction the truck is actually in.
Somebody has to say what to move
A verdict with no instruction sends the load back to the dock with a shrug. The output a yard can use is a distance and a direction.
What a weight-per-axle parameter looks like when it is derived
lb- Steer axle11,780 lb
- Drive tandem33,240 lb
- Trailer tandem32,700 lb
A worked example. Three figures solved from where the freight actually sits, on a 77,720 lb combination. Divide that gross by the axle groups instead and every one of the three numbers is wrong, in both directions.
Producing the number, not consuming it
A road network is asking, correctly, what each axle puts down. It takes whatever it is handed on trust. Hand it a figure that came out of a bill of lading and the road you get back was planned for a truck that does not exist.
Side by side
Twelve comparison criteria, including four where we are the no.
Maps, geocoding, tolls and global coverage are the other column's, and there is no version of this where we take them over.
The whole routing category| Capability | AxleGuard | HERE Technologies |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial vehicle road network with restrictions | Yes | Yes |
| Height, width, length and gross weight applied | Yes | Yes |
| Weight per axle accepted as a routing input | Yes | Yes |
| Hazardous cargo road restrictions | part | Yes |
| Toll cost returned with the route | No | Yes |
| Maps, geocoding and place data | No | Yes |
| Global coverage outside North America | part | Yes |
| Weight per axle derived from cargo positionProducing the number, not consuming it | Yes | No |
| Bridge formula on every consecutive axle group | Yes | No |
| Tire and axle-rating limits layered on statute | Yes | No |
| Corrective move in slider holes and inches | Yes | No |
| Verdict recomputed per leg as freight comes off | Yes | No |
Methodology
Drawn from publicly published product documentation as of August 2026. Where the vendor has not published a capability the cell reads not published rather than no. HERE ships changes continuously — verify with the vendor before a row here decides anything.
When to pick them instead
Four situations where HERE is the answer.
You are building routing into your own software and need commercial vehicle road data as infrastructure. That is precisely what HERE is for.
You need coverage well outside North America. Our jurisdiction rule sets are configured per deployment; a global road network is not something we hold.
You need maps, geocoding, place data and routing from one supplier under one commercial agreement.
You need toll cost returned with the route as part of a quoting flow.
Working together
Produce the number, then spend it.
- 01
The axle numbers are produced first
Freight positions and equipment geometry go in. What each axle group actually carries comes out, with the binding rule named for the jurisdiction on the route.
- 02
Those are the numbers a road network wants
A commercial vehicle routing service asks for weight per axle. Now it is being given a figure derived from the load rather than a gross weight divided by a hope.
- 03
The road comes back and is re-checked
Each leg is re-solved against the freight still aboard, because a run legal at leg one can be illegal at leg three.
- 04
Everything else stays yours
Maps, geocoding, places, tolls and global coverage are HERE's business and there is no reason for that to change.
Related
The category, the matrix and the neighbours.
Next step
See whether one supplied axle figure is enough.
Bring one routed load. We will calculate every axle from the freight position, then show what changes when the road receives the full answer.