I hope it’s okay to ask a question here as a total outsider. I’m not a trucker, but a programer with an interest in the industry, especially when it comes to logistics and cargo optimization. I’ve been thinking about how often trucks are partially empty or have room left for additional cargo that could be utilized.
I’m curious if this is something that happens often in the real world, or if most loads pretty much fill up the available space. How common is it to have extra room, and is there usually a way to take advantage of it for extra deliveries? Any insights from you pros would be really appreciated!
Transport in the hire and reward sector is all about loading as much as (legally) possible into a truck. That is what we do.
No one achieves 100% in the real world but they are lots of agencies, boards and info exchange systems out there helping operators to get a bit more payload into their vehicles.
Companies make more money on groupage loads than full loads. Groupage is as the name implies lots of smaller consignments grouped together.
Then, on the other hand there is the world of supermarket transport where efficiency and logic doesn’t really seem to matter.
Last month I took a trailer to 2 stores in Cornwall. On opening the back door at the first store I was surprised to see it was less than half full, mainly with pallets of toilet rolls.
It was probably heavier coming back with the empty cages, than it was going down!
Yep supermarket RDC and shop work is a special breed.
Last night I took a part loaded trailer for one depot to another depot 19 miles down the road.
At the same time another driver took a hired unit solo to the depot the goods were going to and hopoed in with a decker driver to go to the depot i’d just come from. And wait to get loaded and came back with that driver.
I then had to go into the depot the goods were for to try and collect some equipment, but they didnt have any so came back with shop equipment on the empty trailer the other depot had given me.
That’s without explaining why depot B was asking why I’d taken depot A’s stuff to them even after I explained what it was and it was for depot A and I been told to take it to depot B and there depot was on the line on my trip sheet.
Words were, well it’s a bit stupid sounding bringing it to us. To which I replied yeah well I’m a driver I was specifically told by our office it’s for depot A but you are taking it to a depot B. So that is what I’ve done I do what I’m told to do and what is on my trip sheet.
And the kind of night is not uncommon, let alone the amount of times we pass the depot the whole load is going to on our way back to our depot to then send the stock to their depot. Why they don’t collect it from the supplier themselves I have no idea, especially when they are collecting stock that is coming to us and have to bring it to us???
I mean it’s mind blowing at times. Hence why I leave my brain at home these days mostly. I occasionally bring it out of retirement but rarely worth bothering to do so.
Hahaha madness. They have just started incorporating collections into some of our runs in the last year or so, which do usually make sense. That leaves the stores near suppliers with loads of empty cages though, so they then have to send empty trailers to collect those anyway
Ah… There’s a problem with your question: You are assuming those who organize transport have “common sense” - often that is highly conspicuous by it’s absence.
The main culprit is the Transport Planner who organizes the loads and routes for the driver, all they care about is getting X number of pallets to X numbers of destinations, any way they want to with minimal thought processes on their behalf.
Many of them are entirely averse to using maps, so will send you 75 miles from your penultimate destination, down unsuitable country roads, to deliver a single small pallet of goods to an isolated farm, in your 26 tonner, which has fuel consumption of around 2 miles per litre on a good day.
It is impossible to optimize anything when the person pushing pieces of data around on a computer screen is utterly clueless about geography.
For many hauliers without sattelite depots it is cost effective to run back empty on day runs simply so that the vehicle and driver are available for the next day’s outbound load. The reason being that the rate obtainable for the backload is so poor and the time taken to get rid of it so unpredictable, that it interferes with the following day’s work. Others may want to run an empty vehicle some considerable distance from its destination to collect from a remote customer, or to pick up from one of their own depots, a load or part load required at the vehicle’s base. There is a glut of capacity within the industry with many of the larger fleets accepting work which entails running at a loss simply to keep their assets (vehicles) busy. In many cases this is because these companies make their profit on the warehousing, storage and handling of their customers’ goods. These companies will send a part loaded or even empty vehicle out simply because their customer needs product collected. Sometimes they will be under contract not to mix other customers’ goods on a vehicle or the goods are unsuitable to be mixed. Others will be running a scheduled service which runs with whatever is ready at the time, be that whatever percentage of a load or perhaps the overflow from an already full up scheduled vehicle.
And then thee are those designed to run 50% empty - many tanker types, dry, liquid and gas ( notionally empty), contracted to single supplier. Lots of reasons. Some make sense and some less so.
Firstly Groupage defeats the object of tonne miles productivity because it involves moving a diminishing tonnage over a further distance.
By the same logic it’s why volume/space doesn’t translate as productivety.
It’s also why the rail freight industry has less problem with more pointless additional load deck space on trucks but it hates the idea of more load space combined with more weight capacity.
Retired now, but used to run Euro. Pretty much all returns were empty. I could get a load, but as cav says its poor rates, unpredictable off loading slots, long payment times. We wete specialist hauliers, economically it made sense to come back and load to go.out again.
Place I worked for used back load sites etc for work.
Rember once i dropped off in Crewe rang up said hang on. Half hour later said park up for the night this was about 4pm we can’t afford to have you running back empty were find something in the morning.
I said look only based in Trafford park can be back in an hour after an argument I parked up for the night
Fast forward a week or so dropped off in Plymouth. Said right next job collect in morning from Worcester delivery to Liverpool.
I just dont understand it all.
Won’t let you run back empty 40 miles or so.
But then happy for you to 150 plus miles empty
The bottom line is what counts really.
Running back empty, if you can get a premium rate to run out with Specialist work like Albion, makes sense.
Having available space on a trailer, and time to go off route a little, it makes sense to fill the gap.
Small consignments will often go for a higher rate per tonne than a larger one. A client might be charged £10 per plt for a full load single drop, but £20 per plt, for under 4 plts, to the same drop.
Customers often want some sort of framework to price their deliveries not a variable quote every time.
And that doesn’t take into account contracts where a customers goods are shifted for a fixed single rate. A bit like the Post Office, a single letter, from Cornwall, to a cottage up a dead end lane near John O’Groats, is the same price as a full artic of letters from central London to streets of houses a few miles away.
If there was no load for you to take out straight away, then why take you back empty?
And some loads pay better than others. I could normally load for Hampshire, from Lancashire for more money than I could loading from Glasgow.
best one i ever heard was some company made inflatable globes thing was the customer wanted them pre inflated so rather than a few boxes that would go on a panel van they had to send an artic.
This little gem comes from how many years of management or ownership?
Really Carryfast, you must stop commenting on subjects of which you have no knowledge, it merely makes you look silly.
What the…? Are you deliberately trying to cause CF to have an existentialist crisis by getting him to examine his very raison d’être? Which is of course to make bizarre comments about subjects he has no direct knowledge of. Too much introspective thought on that topic could be inherently dangerous for him, if he achieves existentialist Nirvana he could disappear in a puff of smoke at the moment of enlightenment, like a Trucknet Cheshire Cat.
Thanks, everyone! It seems I’ve grasped some of the context. Based on what I’ve observed, the main three causes of running (partially) empty are:
The type of load – for example, a tank of fuel.
The customers, such as supermarkets, where transport companies are not allowed to do groupage.
The return journey – sometimes it’s more economical to return empty to the depot for a new load.
Does this seem correct?
@star_down_under, it seems like you’re objecting to the statement that groupage defeats the purpose of tonne-miles productivity. Could you please provide a few more details? Do you think the additional profit covers the costs?
I’ll refrain from comment of an operational nature, I am not UK based so have no knowledge of such.
My objection is to our resident, self proclaimed expert on every thing, making inane statements on a subject of which he has no more knowledge than I.
Regular subscribers to this forum know he had a brief encounter with the industry thirty years ago, but people such as yourself may (reasonably) assume that those responding to your question, have some grasp of the subject. Carryfast does not.
All other things being equal tonne/miles is a valid metric.
But all other things are not equal.
Transport companies will often charge a higher tonne/mile rate for a small consignment, or have to accept awkward drops as part of bigger and lucrative contract.
Transport is run for profit and groupage can be lucrative work.
Tonne/miles might be good for fuel efficiency measure, but not for profit measure. So long as we are considering transport in the “free market economy” money is the motive, nothing else.
@star_down_under Got it, thanks for the clarification! @franglais it sounds like when it comes to money, tonne/miles is a valid metric, but not the only one.
