Deadhead: Deadhead refers to miles a truck drives without a paying load, such as the trip to a pickup or the drive home after delivery.
Why it matters to owner operators
Deadhead miles cost fuel, wear and time but earn nothing, so they lower your real rate per mile. Round-trip planning and good reloads reduce them. Nexloads focuses on round-trip lanes to keep deadhead low.
Example
A truck drives 150 empty miles to a pickup. Those miles earn nothing but still count toward fuel and wear.
How to work out your real rate per mile
Divide the load pay by all the miles it took, including the empty miles to the pickup. A $2,000 load with 500 loaded miles pays $4.00 per loaded mile. Add 150 deadhead miles and the real figure is about $3.08 per mile. Deadhead miles still burn fuel, wear tires and use up your hours of service.
Ways to cut deadhead
- Look for the reload before you accept a load into a market with little outbound freight
- Book backhauls or short loads that point you home
- Build relationships with brokers on lanes you run often
- Turn down a high rate into a dead market when the trip out costs more than it pays
Planning the next load early is one of the main jobs of a dispatcher. Our truck dispatch services plan lanes to keep empty miles down.
Related terms
Haul smarter with a dispatch team behind you
Nexloads finds loads, negotiates rates and handles paperwork for owner operators and small fleets. No forced dispatch and no long-term contracts.