Average Miles per Week - Newbie Question

[buck_weat]

Hello All,

First, I want to say thanks to everyone for making this forum such a wealth of information. It is a GREAT place for a newbie (like me) to research and collect information. Everyone has a great attitude, and that makes reading a lot mor fun.

Anyway, as I said before, I am a newbie looking to buy a truck and start my own Expediting adventure. I just wanted to ask everyone about the amount of miles to expect in an average week, both for running Solo and as a Team.

I have talked with several recruiters from different companies, and from what I get from them, I would be running somewhere around 1800 - 2500 miles SOLO, and 2500 - 4000 miles per week as a team. Is this a real-world average?

I guess what I'm asking is: Would 2000 miles be a so-so week, a good week or a bad week on average?

The same for a Team setup: say 3500 miles. Is this a bad, good or great week?

I'm just trying to run some numbers to see if it's feasable for me to do this. I would like to know the lower averages to make sure that I can at least survive during the slower periods. Then if there are more miles than that, I'll count my blessings.

Anyway, thank you all for your time. Any insight into this will be GREATLY appreciated. I'm sure I will be back to pick your brains on LOTS of other stuff also.

Have a GREAT day!

 

[x06col]

Well Buck, you could probably do the math on this yourself, but, here goes. 2000 miles per week minus 20% non-paid DH, personal transportation, traveling to sit at a truck stop etc. (depending what your personal habits are) leaves 1800 paid miles X whatever you are paid loaded, minus about 10% you get shorted (if you allow it) for the funky way mileage is figgured, equals 1620 paid mi. So, say your rate is (average all loads B,C,D) $1.15 X 1620 = $1863, times whatever your all costs per mile are (say $.65), $.65 X 2000 = $1300
$1863 minus $1300 = $563, IF you get 2000 miles. P.S. not sure you can get by on sixty five cents

 

[buck_weat]

Thanks X06. That breaks it down pretty good. I am also wondering how many dispached(paid) miles to expect per week. Would the 2000 miles in your example be an average week? Or is it the mythical week everyone hopes for that rarely ever comes?

Thanks again, and have a GREAT day!

 

[ATeam]

Buck,

Note that some carriers pay by the mile. Others pay by the load. Virtually every load involves some deadhead miles to go pick it up. Deadhead miles are unpaid miles or very-low paid miles. Loaded miles are the miles the truck travels with freight. Personal miles are the miles you accumulate by driving home for free, making side trips to the grocery store, and driving to see a ball game or take in a tourist attraction. In most cases, the shipper pays to have the freight moved from point A to point B, but not to bring an empty truck to the pickup.

Asking the miles question is part of good research. So is asking the all miles question. Revenue-per-all-miles is the result you get when you subrract your beginning-of-month odometer reading from your end-of-month odometer reading, and divide that number into your gross revenue for that month.

How many miles can you expect? Don't EXPECT any. There are no guarantees in expediting. Entering the industry expecting a given number of miles sets up for failure. Miles are not predictable. Whether or not you get "good" miles or not is a function of many things, including your work ethic, willingness to spend time on the road, and your load acceptance strategy (judgement).

In every stage of every business cycle, expediting carriers have contractors (drivers) that succeed and fail.

I invite you to consider two additional questions:

1. What are the successful expediters doing?

2. Do I have what it takes to do the same?

 

[terryandrene]

Buck:

An average, but not necessarily typical hard driving, Van owner/operator for FedEx Custom Critical is operational about 275 cumulative days each year. This average owner drives 1925 loaded miles per week worked.

Using the same figures provided by the carrier, the typical Straight Truck driver travels about 2363 loaded miles.

Using the same figures provided by the carrier, the typical Tractor driver travels about 2665 loaded miles.

Keep in mind that these figures are average for the years 2002-2004 and do not necessarily reflect earning potential, just average potential of a large fleet of expedite trucks. I suspect that these figures are representative of an average of all the expedite carriers with leased owner/operators. If not, it's a start.

As the colonel mentioned, you will also have non-paid deadhead miles which are likely to reach 20-30 % of the paid miles, occasionally more.

Terry

 

[LDB]

Not to be flippant but I would advise you to expect zero miles per week as the potential miles you will make in any single given week. I say that because there will be a week you will take off somewhere during the year. There will be a time when the truck has to go into the shop and you will have a week of forced vacation. Murphy will see to it you have zero miles for a week. That's the focused picture. The big picture, being a year, probably would have 100,000 loaded miles as a solo and since I don't run team a guesstimate of 150,000 loaded miles.

During the 12/24-January period the mileage will be down as that's about the slowest time of year. During the Oct-mid Dec period you'll think there's no end to emergency freight. You have to be good at managing money to even it out over the course of a year.

I would run numbers based on 1500 loaded miles per week and 500 deadhead miles as a solo. Again guesstimating, I'd run my numbers based on 2250 miles loaded and 750 deadhead if I were looking at running team. If those numbers show you can do this you are probably good because I think that's a little low on loaded miles and high on deadhead so the real numbers will work out better than you estimate. I'd estimate all my expenses a little on the high side as well. In my spreadsheet I have it calculate fuel based on 8mpg and $2.60 fuel where I really get 8.4-8.5 mpg and fuel is about $2.40. I have $1200 ($100/mo) for maintenance although my actual maintenance is going to be more like $900. I do the same thing with all my categories.

That puts my true operating cost 7-8cpm less than what the spreadsheet estimates. I know when all is said and done even if there is a nickel a mile problem in a particular run I'm still coming out a few cents better than the model estimates for that particular run. Some will think that's a crazy way to do it and probably tell you not to listen to that. I have no problem with that. This probably isn't the best system for every person to use but it works for me and worked well when I was exploring this industry because I knew I would never do worse than that and should do better probably 99% of the time.

I hope that's at least a little bit helpful to you. Good luck.

Leo Bricker, owner trucks 3034, 4958
OOIDA 677319
73's K5LDB
Highway Watch Participant, TruckerBuddy
EO Forum Moderator 1+ Years of Service
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