Expedite companies in Canada - information

[kree8ive]

I've been driving a tractor trailer for a few years now and I've become intrigued by the expedite side of the business. I've been doing some research and I'd be interested in hearing comments from current expedite drivers in Canada about the companies they have worked for (past or present). I've tried searching through the archives and I have found several Canadian companies mentioned, but not many first-hand comments about what it's like to work for them. I'd be interested in hearing the good, the bad, and the ugly about whatever company you work for. How's the pay? Do they keep you busy? Do you spend forever waiting for return loads? If you had a chance to do it all over, would you still pick the same company you work for now? Did things turn out the way the recruiter promised or do you feel that you were mislead? I know recruiters take a lot of flack for telling you whatever lies will get you to sign on, but in my experience (with Schneider National and Challenger Motor Freight), 90% of what the recruiters told me was true. Subjective comments would be welcome too, like ABC company is good for straight trucks but not for cargo vans, or XYZ company is great if you live in Windsor but not if you live in Toronto.

I'll share what I've learned so far because it may help others who are starting to check out the expedite business themselves. Take it with a grain of salt because I haven't actually worked for these companies, I'm just going by what I was told by the recruiter or another driver. Also, pay packages change over time so keep that in mind if you're reading these posts years after they were written.

I gather that "Highway Star" works for Thompson Emergency Freight in Windsor so maybe he can give us the dirt on them. That's one of the companies I'm interested in but their recruiter hasn't returned my calls yet. I read in some older posts that they were unionized (CAW) and did a lot of work for GM. Is that still true or have they diversified into general freight? They seem to have a good reputation. I think one of their drivers once told me something about them guaranteeing to find you a return load within 6 hours or they would pay your empty miles back to the nearest border crossing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

There are a lot of older posts about Dynamex and the majority of the comments were positive. They operate as a local courier company in major Canadian and US cities but they have an expedite division operating out of Cambridge, ON. I spoke to the recruiter there and it sounds like there's money to be made with this company. He said I could expect to gross about $120k per year with a straight truck but the revenue would swing up and down considerably from week to week and month to month. January, February and July are traditionally their slowest months. They pay 69% of gross revenue which sounds reasonable (although 75% to 80% would sound a lot better), but they only give you 69% of the fuel surcharge. I figure the person paying for the fuel should be getting the fuel surcharge and it irks me that they keep 1/3 of it. Most of the freight is within a 500 mile radius of Cambridge which should get you home easily if you live in the Toronto-Windsor corridor. One thing I like about Dynamex is it sounds like they are very aggressive about finding you return freight and you will often have your return load assignment before you deliver your outbound load. The way they do this is by running higher revenue expedite freight outbound (ie. Canada to USA) and then taking whatever freight they can find coming back, even LTL. The return load may not pay as much, but it keeps you from sitting for a day or two waiting for an expedite load coming back or driving home empty at your own expense.

Adco Logistics in Mississauga is one company that looks good in the ads but I havn't found much info about them in the forum. I spoke to a recruiter there but he was new with the company and couldn't answer all my questions. I'm going to try to speak with someone else who's been there longer. It looks like they changed their pay package recently because they used to advertise a 75% commission but now they advertise a mileage rate. The rates for loaded miles are the highest I've come across so far: $1.24 for van, $1.57 for straight truck, and a whopping $2.25 for tractor trailer. The catch on that last one is you need your own trailer; they don't provide you with a company trailer. The current fuel surcharge is 6cpm/8cpm/11cpm respectively which is a little lower than the competition. If you have to go more than 50 empty miles, you get 75 cents per empty mile. I guess that means anything less than 50 empty miles is unpaid. They primarily run the Great Lakes with a lot of loads between southern Ontario and Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. They do a lot of automotive freight so you get the corresponding slow periods around the Christmas and summer shutdowns. I was told you usually get a return load within a few hours. I'd like to know more about this company if anyone has had experience with them. I tried talking to one of their drivers at a truck stop and he was pretty tight lipped which I found surprising. Most drivers are chatty when given the opportunity.

I have to give TST Expedited two thumbs up for actually giving you a great deal of information on their website (www.tst911.com). They pay by the mile - $0.85 for cargo van, $1.25 for straight truck or tractor trailer. I spoke to their recruiter who said they currently have a lot of straight trucks but they need more tractors. They're based in Windsor and their primary operating area is southern Ontario and Quebec and any state east of the Mississippi. The recruiter said that if they can't find you a return load within 24 hours, they will move you to a better area. They pay for the plates and only charge 1% of revenue for insurance, but they do charge you $32.40 per week for the Qualcomm. I forgot to ask what the average miles/revenue per year is and I got voice mail when I called back. That's one key piece of information they don't have on the website. I'm not sure what their current fuel surcharge is. You can certainly count on this being a financially stable company since TST is owned by TransForce.

TKR Expedite is based in Mississauga. I spoke with their recruiter. They pay $1.25 per mile for straight trucks and currently have a 12% fuel surcharge. They pay the same rate for empty miles between your delivery and your next pickup, but they don't pay for your empty miles going to/from the house. They expect their trucks to run a minimum of 2500 miles per week and I was told you would have no trouble getting those kind of miles. Their primary operating area in Ontario is between Mississauga and Kitchener. From there, they run to the eastern United States with a lot of business back and forth to the Carolinas where they have another terminal. The day I spoke to them, they had every one of their trucks heading to or from the Carolinas and didn't have any spare capacity for other accounts that week. It sounds good from the revenue perspective but they do charge you for the plates ($1200/year) and there's a big tab for insurance too ($1100/month). It sounds like they keep you moving and you won't spend much time sitting.

Genesis Express out of Windsor said they don't need any more straight trucks right now, just tractors. Canadian miles are paid $1.10 loaded and $1.05 empty. US miles are paid $1.15 loaded and $1.10 empty. The current fuel surcharge is 18cpm. I was told their trucks average 2300 to 2500 miles per week. Genesis pays for insurance but the owner-operator pays the deductible buydown of $165 per pay period (twice monthly). They have a $1500 sign-on bonus right now and a $500 annual safe driving bonus.

Conway NOW says they do have vans operating in Canada but the guy I talked to says they aren't looking for any more for the Canadian market at this time and they haven't added a unit in Canada in the year and a half he has worked there.

FedEx Custom Critical sent me a package and I wasn't impressed with the pay package. They pay in US dollars so it probably would have looked better a few years ago when the exchange rate was much bigger. Average revenue for a D Unit (straight truck) is US$72,500 per year which is currently about CAD$85,000 (and falling). I figure a truck payment and fuel will knock off more than half of that figure and that's just two expenses. I didn't take the math any further because I'm not looking to take a pay cut. I make more than $50k as a company driver. One positive thing I heard about them from one of their drivers is they have non-forced dispatch. They send you the load details on the Qualcomm and you have ten minutes to accept or decline before it goes to the next truck in the area waiting for a load.

Erb has a refrigerated expedite division but I didn't look into it because I don't have much interest in running primarily meat and having to do FDA clearance in addition to customs clearance. They do have a good reputation as far as I know. Their website show the pay rates but I think it's just for the tractors, not for the expedite trucks. Regardless, the pay package looks competitive and they do pay for lots of extras liking loading, unloading, border crossings, etc. They even pay you for doing your pre-trip inspection.

I'd like to know more about K-Dac Expedite which is based near Kitchener. They were profiled in an article in the January 2005 issue of Highway Star Magazine. That's the article that got me interested in expediting. There's not much info on their website and although they advertise regularly in the trade magazines, their recruiter hasn't returned any of the three calls I've made to them in the past month.

Other Canadian Expedite companies I've come across but don't have information on yet include:
Midnight Express
RemEx
TNA Express
Excel

Sorry if this post seems excessively long. Any info or comments would be appreciated and the names of any other companies I've overlooked. Thanks in advance for your contributions.

[roadeyes]

Thats great info!

Thanks for making the effort to dig all of this up, not just for your own benefit, but by posting it here for all to read.

I have been a possible wannabe in this field for some time now
and have been looking at most of the companies you have mentioned.

I was not aware that DX kept a percentage of the fuel surcharge, which would not sit very well with me either.
On the other hand, they could say we are keeping a 100% of the fuel
surcharge and the o/o or driver gets nothing but because we charge
such a high per mile rate that you are still getting a good rate as an o/o.

I know thats being facecious (sp?) but as I'm sure you are aware
it really comes down to what's left in your pocket regardless of how they work the numbers on paper.

A couple more points about Dynamex:

1) they don't do alot of automotive so they are not tied to the ups
and downs of that industry.

2) apparently (not confirmed) they have started an expediting division
in Columbus OH. which might make it a better possibility of
getting full pop paying return trips instead of just cheap
backhauls.


Another company that interests me greatly is landstar.
I do not have any information about their Canadian operations
but they do have a Canadian recruiting office located at:

1051 Main Street East,
Hamilton, ON L8M 1N5
Tel. : 905-547-4178
email: ejwood@on.aibn.com

There is a wealth of information about landstar in the archives
of these forums as well as at www.truck.net

If you contact them I would be very interested in what you find out.


Best of luck in your endevour in this segment of the trucking industry.

[bryan]

Hi
Thompson's has great people skills.Very easy to get along with.But they just shut down their American division.Yes they pay mt miles.
Adco Haven't found one who speaks good english yet.
TST A buddy of mine works for them and he loves it.He lives in Hamilton and runs the Golden Horseshoe to Detriot.Full use of HOS and home 2 to 3 days a week.They also have longer runs.Large company.
Landstar Thompson's old recruiter bought a truck and signed with them.From all reports he likes it.Long runs.
RJR Their based out of Windsor.Their drivers are complaining about being worked to hard.Lots of freight not enough trucks.Small family owned company.Alot of mid range loads.600 to 800 miles.Very aggressive.
Roaring Express Their out of Windsor.Alot of Toronto to Detriot and then back.
CTX Alot of complaints about their satelite system.A freind of mine jokes about their 72 hour dispatch.They will call you on monday for a tuesday pickup delivering wednesday for 250 mile trip.

[kree8ive]

Roadeyes, I'm glad the info was helpful. As for Landstar, I called them but didn't get any information over the phone. The recruiter wants me to come in to the office to get all the details. I know Landstar has one of the larger expedite operations in the US, but I'm not sure how big they are in expedite in Canada. The ads they run in the Canadian trade publications push their dedicated automotive runs, but maybe that's just what gets their phones ringing.

Bryan, thanks for your contributions. I didn't know CTX ran out of Canada. I did a quick check on them and found a lot of negative comments. Just knowing that they're owned by good ole Manny (owner of the Ambassador Bridge) is enough to turn me off.

I hadn't come across RJR before. I'll have to check into them. There's nothing in the forums but I found their website at www.rjrtrans.com

I forgot Roaring Express on my list. That's another one I need to look into.

[highway star]

I've been with Thompson since 9/99. Unfortunatly, they've decided to do away with the U.S. part of the fleet. It's down to 4 vans and 1 D-unit and they feel the profit on that isn't enough to justify having us around. Oh well, business is business, I guess.

They're a decent company to work for. The union is gone. There is no more G.M. contract. They do a fair amount of Honda. They recently started putting on tractor/trailers. I would recomend them. If you send me a PM I would be happy to answer questions.

[FIS53]

I work out of Mississauga doing emergency parts runs and have met lots of Adco guys, did a short stint with Dynamex Toronto.
I know Shaun who runs for K-Dac and he loves it. He left IBCL to work there and started with a van. He did alright but took over a 5 ton from another driver at K-Dac who was moving up to larger. He now has bought a new truck (5 ton) to keep on going.
The Dynamex div I workrd for was horrible. Cambridge though is a better div. A fellow who I talk with left IBCL to work there and is doing great (last time we chatted). Don't know about that 500 mile area for freight as he goes a lot further and can be on the road for over a week no problem.
Adco well yeah a lot of their drivers are tight lipped but seem to be doing just ok. Out of 5 I have talked to 4 were looking for other companies (others not talking much). There seemed to be something they were not saying about the company. Last time I had that was about Unitrek and boy stay away from those guys. Took me 6 months to get paid for an emergency job for them and I low balled the price.
Good luck in your hunt.
Rob Fis

[kree8ive]

Highway Star, that sucks that your being decomissioned on the US side. The concept of layoffs in the trucking industry seems pretty foreign considering the constant discussion about driver shortages but I guess competition sometimes rears its ugly head and someone gets burned. I guess it's a good endorsement for Thompson that you still give them a positive review even after they let you go. I'll probably bounce some more specific questions off you after I have a chance to speak to a recruiter.

Rob, thanks for your input. I'm still intrigued by Adco. With that kind of mileage pay, it's hard not to be. But I will be wary of it being "too good to be true". Regarding the 500 mile area for Dynamex, I should clarify that the recruiter said MOST of their freight is within 500 miles but there will be loads that go well outside that area. They had a driver in California the week before I called.

I'm back out on the road tomorrow morning so I'll check back next weekend to see if there's any more input from other drivers.

[OntarioVanMan]

First off lets say most of the above co's mentioned above keep a portion of the FSC except for Fed-ex. Canadian expedite co's seem bad for this.

Nextly I've been with Dynamex for almost 3 years now and a smaller co. out of Hamilton before that.

About DX starting an American division let me assure you it's true. Driver services out of Columbus Ohio and dispatched out of Cambridge.
They are looking to advertize in the spring( I recommended a couple sites)nand hold a job fair.

How do I know?
Judy and I are the first van to sign on. our unit #5000 and we run a 2005 Sprinter plated in South Dakota.. the rate of pay is competitive to P2 except for the FSC issue! We moved there this summer.

True, not alot of automotive business is pretty steady all year around for those who work smart!
Backhauls? yes especially for C & D units LTL and expedite.

Management wise? They suck takes forever to get an issue settled. They are micromanaged. They move at a snails pace.
BUT if ya stay out of the politics and stay active and get along with dispatch you'll make money AND thier cheques don't bounce!

Dispatch... high turnover..BUT theres some ole tried and true ones that know what we go thru out here.
ie.. when fuel prices where off the wall they tried wherever they could to double us up.

[Tennesseahawk]

I just talked to someone who's signing his trucks on with TKR. He told me they pay $1.10 all dispatched miles (including dh to get back to the zone). What shocked me was that he said they often try to put two loads or more going down south. I'd love it, except for the fact that you get paid $1.10/mi whether you have 1 load on or 5. He tried to justify by saying, "I don't care if they make $6/mi, they're still paying dh." I told him I didn't think that was good business sense.

Is there a chance I could be wrong about how they work this? I'd like to know if maybe the guy I talked to got the wrong scoop.

[OntarioVanMan]

I haven't a clue bout the company you mentioned but we get paid a double or triple if it's 3 diffrent companies and usually a drop charge if its 2 shipments to 2 different consignees.

[kree8ive]

I spoke to the recruiter at TKR in mid-November and I was told $1.25 per mile, loaded or empty. This conflicts with the $1.10 figure you heard. I considered that maybe it was $1.10 for cargo vans and $1.25 for straight trucks, but their ads make no mention of cargo vans. They're only looking for 5 ton expedite straight trucks and tractor trailers.

The subject of putting multiple shipments on the truck never came up when I spoke to TKR. I guess I hadn't considered that idea since it's more of an LTL situation than an expedite situation. Maybe they do a lot of scheduled freight movements in addition to empergency expedite service. Coming from the truckload end of the industry, we don't get extra mileage pay when there is multiple pickups or drops. We just get stopoff pay which is usually around $20 to $30 per stop. Of course, they aren't really separate orders when I'm doing that. It's one shipment going to 2 or 3 consignees, or 2 or 3 pickups going to a single consignee (usually an auto plant).

TKR also didn't mention anything to me about paying for picks and drops and I don't see anything in their ad. If it's common for them to be doing multiple shipments, I'd be a bit concerned that they're only paying for the miles and not for the stops. They can really eat into your available hours of service, particularly when you have fixed appointment times and can't get into the dock early. I'll try to clarify this if I speak to them again.

[kree8ive]

South Dakota??? Did you get lost or something? Don't you know that when Canadians move south of the border, they're supposed to pick a warm spot like Florida or Arizona? I'm assuming you had family there or some other overriding reason to pick that state. I hope things work out well for you there.

Thanks for the info about Dynamex, OntarioVanMan. I guess that's a vote of confidence for the company that you stayed with them when making the move instead of switching to a carrier with an existing presence in the SD market.

[kree8ive]

In general, I've been getting a lot of voice mail when calling around and I'm not getting many return calls so that is perhaps an indication that there's not much demand for new trucks/drivers at the moment. It's understandable that some companies aren't recruiting heading into the Christmas slowdown but still a little unprofessional that they're not returning calls. At least the guy I spoke to at Dynamex called me back right away and answered all my questions, but pointed out that it wasn't to anyone's advantage for me to sign on before February or March.

I finally got through to someone at K-Dac. They're not taking on any owner-operators at the moment and aren't looking for DZ drivers. The only people they're recruiting right now is AZ company drivers for the non-expedite portion of their business. I'm already doing that at Challenger so I wasn't interested.

I dropped in at Thompson Emergency Freight last week. Similar story there (although they're strictly owner-operator, no company drivers). They aren't looking for straight trucks or vans right now, but they are looking for tractors. This is a new direction for this company and they are working hard to get regular dedicated freight for the tractor trailers. I guess the pay package is a bit off topic for an expedite forum and I'm not sure how it compares to what they pay the expedite trucks but it is a very competitive pay package for truckload work. Some details which are probably the same as the expedite pay package:
Miles are paid loaded or empty (a little less for empty miles), base plates and HUT are deducted in installments, insurance premiums are a percentage of revenue (3% I think). They don't use Qualcomm and require o/o's to have a cel phone, preferably on the Mike network. A benefit plan is available. In contrast to the above discussion about TKR, Thompson DOES pay extra mileage pay for multi-loads and stopoff pay for each pick and drop.

[Tennesseahawk]

Have you tried Roaring Express? I've seen a ton of their trucks on the 401. Hard to miss that lion :D

[kree8ive]

I had some time off this week to make some calls but unfortunately most of the recruiters were taking a week off as well. I did manage to speak with someone at RJR Transportation in Windsor. Like many of the other companies I spoke to, they're starting to add on tractor trailers to do scheduled freight but they're still taking on expedite trucks too. Tractor trailers are paid $1.10 loaded or empty. Expedite trucks are paid $1.18 loaded and $0.55 empty. 85% to 90% of miles are loaded, 10% to 15% empty. Current fuel surcharge is 17cpm. Expedite trucks average about 2500 miles per week and gross about $10,000 per month. They concentrate on longer runs and mostly run freight from the GTA to the southern states. They don't run into Quebec and generally avoid the northeastern US (NY, PA, etc).

I came across some recruiting brochures for Thompson Emergency Freight that lists their pay rates for the expedite division. I'm not sure if these are the most current rates, but it shows compensation of $0.67 to $1.05 per loaded mile for cargo vans, $1.00 to $1.43 for straight trucks, and $1.40 for tractors. I would assume the pay is less for empty miles. I'm not sure if the price range is based on the size/weight of the freight, the length of haul, the level of urgency, or a combination. As discussed in a previous message in this thread, Thompson isn't currently recruiting for their expedite division but they are recruiting tractors for their new scheduled freight division. I just figured I'd put the info here for reference since I assume most of these companies will be recruiting expedite trucks again when business picks up in a couple of months.