Improve load matching and planning
When it may fit: Empty miles come from poor positioning.
Evidence needed: Dispatch data and lane history.
Trade-off: Planning tools need data discipline.
Fleet Intelligence Brief
How Empty Miles Affect Fleet Economics
Every empty mile burns fuel, wears equipment and pays a driver while earning nothing. A small change in the empty-mile share can move profit more than a rate increase.
1. The business problem
How much is each point of empty miles costing the fleet?
Empty miles, also called deadhead, are unavoidable in some measure. A truck that delivers in one place has to get to its next load, and the next load may not be nearby.
The share of empty miles shows how well the fleet is matched to its freight. A rising share, even by a point or two, is a quiet drain on profit that rarely stands out in a profit statement.
2. What the evidence can reveal
Understanding empty miles takes a few measures:
- Calculated Empty-mile share: empty miles divided by total miles.
- Calculated Cost per total mile compared with cost per loaded mile.
- Calculated The profit effect of each point of empty share, from a sensitivity or scenario model.
- Information gap Reasons for empty miles: lane imbalance, scheduling, load availability, driver positioning, customer practices.
The lane-level view often shows that a few imbalanced lanes account for most of the empty miles.
3. Investigate the problem
In the synthetic carrier, Calculated the empty-mile share rose from 15.2% to 16.3%. Loaded miles grew 6.5%, yet operating costs grew 11.6% and operating profit fell 28.9%, to $1.28M.
Calculated The scenario shows the scale of the issue. Each percentage point of empty-mile share changes annual operating profit by about $148K, more than a 1% change in fuel price ($50K) and nearly as large as a 1% change in rate ($169K). A point of empty share is worth about 12% of the operating profit shown above.
Hypothesis A rise of a point or so is consistent with growth in lanes that are hard to backhaul, such as the cross-country spot lane, where miles grew 14.5%. Information gap The demo does not show where empty miles occur. Matching empty miles to lanes and to origin and destination pairs is the logical next step in an investigation.
4. Explore the interactive experience
Investigate it yourself.
Fleet Economics Dashboard: a lane-level dashboard with empty-mile share, a scenario simulator for rate, fuel, miles and empty miles, evidence-linked answers from APIS, and a sample brief, all on synthetic data.
The experience below is built on a synthetic carrier, “Demo Freight Co.” Nothing in it is real, so you can explore freely.
- In the Scenario tab, the preset reduces empty-mile share by two points. Note the profit effect.
- Now raise the rate per mile by 2% and compare the effect.
- Ask APIS how empty miles affect profit.
5. Evaluate possible solutions
Cutting empty miles depends on whether the cause is lane imbalance, planning or customer terms.
6. What leadership should do next
Questions to answer
- What is the empty-mile share and its trend?
- Which lanes generate the empty miles?
- What does each point cost?
- Is the cause planning, lane imbalance or customer?
Data to gather
- Loaded and empty miles by lane
- Dispatch and load-matching records
- Lane revenue and cost
- Customer volume patterns
Steps to take
- Rank lanes by empty-mile share.
- Cost the empty return on the worst lanes.
- Test a backhaul or repricing.
- Track weekly.
7. Engage Two Pillars
Understand the Economics of Your Fleet
Two Pillars can help carriers, fleet operators, brokers and logistics businesses investigate lane, vehicle, customer, cost and expansion economics using your own data. A good first step is an empty-mile analysis that traces deadhead to lanes, customers and planning practices.
Sources and data notes
- The organization, its figures, and every number in this article and its interactive experience are synthetic and illustrative. They are not real data, a benchmark, or a forecast.
- Reviewed October 2026. This article describes an approach to investigation. It does not replace review by qualified professionals.