Van ? for Terry

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Now that I have access to my stats....Whats the accepted DH to loaded miles rate or is it DH to all miles? or both???? For a van.
 

terryandrene

Veteran Expediter
Safety & Compliance
US Coast Guard
Deadhead to loaded miles ratio means nothing.

Essentially, figure your total operating costs so when you get a run offer you'll know whether or not to accept it. Let's say you are in Cedar Rapids, IA and a run offer is with P/U in Des Moines, with delivery in Grand River, NE. Your carrier never has any freight out of the delivery locale, so you'll have to deadhead to the nearest city for your next run. Let's assume that would be Omaha, NE.

Deadhead to pickup is 130 miles, run is 284 miles, DH to Omaha is 225 miles. Run pay including DH to P/U = $293 or 71 cents/mile. Would a sensible van operator take this load knowing that he would then have to DH to Omaha for a chance at another offer? This is 45% DH on run offer

Carrier comes back with new offer; $1.00 all DH miles to P/U, plus run miles. This is 00% DH all miles; but,you still have to drive to Omaha when you're done. This scenario gives you $.64/mile, would you take it?

To answer the question. One persons good run may not be my good run. If an offer satisfies your monetary requirement, regardless of deadhead miles take it. There are many other variables to consider and deadhead is but one of them. We must not look at just one run to determine our businesses profitability, but all our income and expenses over a period of time, such as a month or a quarter. In the long run, you will likely be profitable if your deadhead percentage is in the range of 25-30% of total miles traveled.
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
Thanks Terry...Already did the sample thingee you gave or something like it....I realize theres no real norm in this biz...its so individual, but there is a bottomline where it's a bust. Thank Again!
 
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